Gutter replacement cost dataset

Footprint to linear feet of gutter

Seamless 5-inch aluminium, single storey, rectangular plan at 1.6:1, extensions fitted, nothing else switched on. Only the footprint and the roof form change down and across this table. The eave line is measured at the edge of the roof rather than the edge of the plan, because the roof overhangs, and the overhang is declared once in the dataset and used for both the gutter length and the roof area that drains.

Read the 1,000 sq ft row, because two of the six questions Google publishes for this search ask about exactly that house. 86.0 feet of gutter under a gable roof and 177.5 feet under a cross-gabled one, on identical square footage, for $1,481 against $2,965. Any single dollars-per-square-foot figure is averaging those, which is why none of them matches a quote. Note also that this column is the footprint, the ground the house covers, and not the total floor area: a two-storey 2,000 sq ft house buys gutter for 1,000.

What the plan shape changes

1,600 sq ft in every row; only the proportions of the rectangle change. A gable roof carries gutter on the two long sides only, so stretching the plan lengthens the gutter even though the area is fixed. A hip roof goes all the way round, so it is the compact plans that gain least from it. This is the arithmetic behind refusing to quote one average multiplier: on the same footprint a hip roof carries between forty and a hundred per cent more linear feet than a gable, and the finished job lands between forty and seventy per cent above it.

The downspout rule, and why there is no rainfall input

The number of outlets follows the roof area draining into each one, capped at one every 40 feet along the run and held no denser than one every 20. The square feet a single outlet can serve is our estimate, modelled at a stated design rainfall of about three inches an hour: the formal sizing rule lives in the plumbing code, which is licensed material we will not copy. What is public is the phenomenon, and USGS Water Science School, Runoff: Surface and Overland Water Runoff describes it. Retrieved 2026-08-22.

There was a rainfall dropdown on this tool and it was removed after being measured rather than after being argued about. The outlet count is a small integer, two to four on most houses, and three bands of rainfall do not separate small integers: across a grid of 144 realistic configurations, 94 per cent produced at least two identical totals and 69 per cent produced three, including the 1,000 sq ft house that the search itself asks about. A control that almost never changes anything is worse than no control, because it promises a precision that is not there. What the trade actually does about heavy rain is fit a bigger gutter and a bigger outlet, and that is the row above. On the 1,600 ft² gable roof, moving from 5-inch K-style to 6-inch K-style takes the outlet count from 4 to 3 and moves the finished job by 0.6%, because every outlet removed takes its pipe, its fittings, its extension and its labour away with it. On the 3,000 ft² hip roof the count does not move at all, and that is the honest limit of the rule: there it is the 40-foot spacing cap setting the number rather than the water.

What height costs

Identical gutter, identical length, identical material. What changes is getting to it: the installation hours carry a storey factor, the access hours per foot roughly triple between one storey and two, the downspouts get longer, and above one storey there is a hire line for staging or pump jacks that a bungalow never sees. This is the part of a gutter price that a figure quoted per foot cannot contain.

What the material changes

The reference house again, 1,600 sq ft on a gable roof with 107.2 feet of eave. Material is only half of what a material choice costs: each one carries an hours factor as well, because vinyl means a joint every ten feet to seat, steel is heavy and unforgiving to cut, and copper is soldered rather than sealed.

What gutter protection adds

Same house again. The comparison this dataset deliberately does not make for you is whether a guard pays for itself, because that depends on how many cleaning visits it prevents, and nobody can measure that from a dataset. What it can do is show the price of admission honestly, including the fact that the most expensive option is the one that behaves worst in the heaviest rain.

What appears once the old gutter is on the ground

Three conditional groups do more to a real invoice than any of the choices above, and none of them can be seen from the kerb before the work starts. On the reference house, national figures: forty linear feet of rotten fascia takes it from $1,809 to $2,523, because that is a carpenter, a board and the priming of every cut end. A pre-1978 house takes it to $2,297, which is containment sheeting along the whole eave line and the hours of a certified renovator, since pulling spikes out of a painted fascia disturbs paint. And the cheapest line on the page is the one with the largest effect for the money: turning off the extensions and splash blocks at the foot of each downspout drops the job from $1,809 to $1,659 and leaves the water against the foundation, which is the problem the gutter was bought to solve.

Line items

Conditional lines appear only when the corresponding answer applies, and the material lines for the four gutter types are mutually exclusive by construction rather than by convention. Labour lines carry the trade whose published wage pays for them; the material and hire lines carry no regional adjustment, because coil, fasteners and scaffold frames are shipped goods and only the hours are local.

The reasoning behind each figure

Written out so that a gutter contractor can point at the exact assumption that is wrong. A number with no reasoning behind it cannot be corrected, only believed or disbelieved.

Take down and lower the old gutter and downspouts

• Modelled at about a minute and a quarter per linear foot of eave, multiplied by the storey factor. Two people pull the spikes off a hundred feet of nailed aluminium and get it on the ground inside an hour; soldered or copper runs take longer and are covered by the material factor on the installation line, not here.
• If the house already has guards or screens on it, another 0.015 hours a foot goes on this line, because they have to come off first and they rarely come off whole.
• It is deliberately its own line and its own trade. Pulling spikes, cutting sealed joints and getting twenty-foot lengths down without denting the siding is helper work, and pricing it at an installer rate would overstate a third of the job.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Tipping fee for the old gutter at the transfer stationestimated, ±45%

• The gate fee only, priced per foot of old run because that is what fills the trailer. Aluminium has scrap value and sometimes offsets this line entirely; vinyl and coated steel do not, and the bottom of the band assumes a scrap merchant takes the metal.
• This half is the ticket, not the trip. It is a published rate at a facility rather than somebody’s time, so it carries no regional wage adjustment — the driving does, and it is the line immediately below.

Load out and drive the old gutter to the tip

• Just under an hour of round trip plus about fifteen seconds a foot to cut down, bundle and load the old run. Splitting this off the tipping fee is deliberate: hauling is somebody’s time in somebody’s truck and it is the most local thing on this page, so it takes the regional wage adjustment that a gate fee cannot.
• Priced at 53-3032, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers, because that is the published occupation whose wage tracks what a loaded run to a construction-waste facility costs in a given metro.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Set up, move and strike ladders, staging and fall protection

• This is the line that makes a two-storey house cost more than a single-storey one with exactly the same length of gutter, and it is the one no per-foot price contains.
• Modelled at 0.012 crew-hours per foot of eave on a single storey, 0.04 on two and 0.075 on three. On a two-storey house the ladder moves every eight or ten feet, and that is where the hours go.
• It is not optional even at ground-floor height. OSHA 1926.501 requires that each employee on a walking or working surface with an unprotected side or edge six feet or more above a lower level be protected from falling, and a single-storey eave is already at ten.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Hire of pump jacks, staging or a lift above single storeyestimated, ±50%

• A day rate for the frontage of staging, the pair of pump jacks or the towable lift that a two- or three-storey gutter job needs and a single-storey one does not. One day per 160 feet of eave on two storeys and two days per 160 feet on three, because at that height the platform gets rebuilt for each face of the house rather than walked round it.
• This is hire, not wages, so it is modelled as equipment and takes no regional adjustment: the rental rate for a scaffold frame moves far less between metros than the hour of the person standing on it, and that hour is already on the access labour line above.
• Declared as our own estimate with its band, because FEMA publishes no schedule rate for residential staging or pump jacks the way it does for excavators. The absence of a citable rate is a reason to label the number, not a reason to pretend the hire is free — and pretending it is free is what makes published three-storey gutter prices look impossible to a contractor.

Vinyl gutter sections and joinersestimated, ±45%

• Ten-foot sections plus the joiners between them, priced per foot of run at what the material costs rather than at what a finished job costs. The joiners are why this material is cheap to buy and the first to leak: a hundred feet of vinyl has ten seams that a seamless run does not have.
• The band separates thin builder-grade profile at the bottom from heavier-wall sections at the top. Neither is a regional price: extruded plastic ships anywhere.
• Worth watching what the calculator does when you switch between vinyl and aluminium. The material is roughly half the price per foot and the finished job comes out about six per cent cheaper, because on a contractor-installed run the hours, the hangers, the downspouts and the access do not change and they are most of the bill. Vinyl is a genuine saving for someone hanging it themselves. Paying a crew to hang it saves very little and buys a joint every ten feet.

Seamless aluminium gutter, rolled on site from coilestimated, ±33%

• Coil stock plus the finish, run off a roll-forming machine parked at the kerb so each side of the house comes off in one piece. The material band covers 0.027 in economy coil at the bottom and 0.032 in heavy-gauge with a baked finish at the top.
• This is the coil, not the finished job. A homeowner who is quoted five dollars a foot is being quoted gutter hung on the house, with the hangers, the outlets, the hours and the access in it — all of which are separate lines here. Reading a material band as an installed price is the commonest way these figures get repeated wrong.
• Gauge is the specification worth reading on a quote and the one most quotes omit. The difference between 0.027 and 0.032 is roughly a dollar a foot and it is the difference between a gutter that holds its shape under a leaned ladder and one that does not.
• Manufactured and shipped nationally, so this line carries no regional adjustment. The hours to hang it do.

Galvanised or galvalume steel gutterestimated, ±43%

• Roughly double the material cost of aluminium for a run that will take a snow load and a leaned ladder without deforming. The band separates plain galvanised 26 gauge at the bottom from galvalume with a factory paint system at the top.
• Steel is the right answer where snow slides off a roof onto the gutter, which is a load aluminium simply is not stiff enough to take. It is the wrong answer near salt air, where the coating decides the life of the run.

Copper gutter, half-round profileestimated, ±40%

• Ten to twelve times the material cost of aluminium — run the two side by side in the calculator and read the gutter line — and the band is wide because copper is a traded commodity whose price moves month to month rather than a manufactured good with a list price.
• The bottom of the band is 16 oz stock; the top is 20 oz half-round with matching cast brackets. Joints are soldered rather than sealed, which is why the labour line for this material is roughly double as well.
• Worth saying plainly: this is an architectural decision. Copper does not drain water better than aluminium. It lasts fifty years and it looks like copper.

Upcharge from 5-inch to 6-inch gutterestimated, ±48%

• The incremental material cost of wider coil, larger outlets and bigger brackets. Quoted as an upcharge because that is how the trade sells it. The heavier 3×4 downspout that comes with it is not in here: it is priced on the downspout line, at its own rate per foot, so that the two do not get counted twice.
• It is the one upgrade on this page that mostly pays for itself inside the same estimate, and you can watch it happen: a 3×4 outlet carries about twice what a 2×3 carries, so the downspout count drops, and each downspout removed takes its pipe, its fittings, its extension and its labour with it. On the default house the upcharge is almost exactly half the cost of the gutter material itself, and the finished job moves by less than one per cent.
• Which is the argument for it. The extra capacity is nearly free in practice, and capacity is the thing that decides whether a gutter overflows in the storm it was bought for. It is also this calculator’s answer to heavy-rainfall climates, which is why there is no rainfall dropdown: size the outlet, do not multiply the tubes.

Hidden hangers and fastenersestimated, ±46%

• Hidden hangers with screws into the fascia at roughly two-foot centres, which is what holds the run straight and level over its life. Priced per foot rather than each so that spacing is visible as a choice instead of hidden in a lump sum.
• The top of the band is hanger spacing tightened to sixteen inches, which is what a snow region needs and what most quotes silently leave at twenty-four. Cast brackets for copper sit above this band and are the reason a copper job is not simply a material swap.
• Fasteners are a shipped commodity and take no regional adjustment. Screwing them in does, and it is inside the installation hours.

Mitred corners, cut and sealed on siteestimated, ±49%

• A hip roof has four of them and a cross-gabled roof has more, including inside miters, which are the ones that leak because the water runs into the joint rather than past it.
• Priced as a strip miter or a box miter with sealant. The band separates a folded strip joint at the bottom from a fabricated box corner at the top, and the top is what a copper or a steel job needs.
• A gable roof has none, which is a real part of why it is the cheapest roof on this page to gutter.

End caps and drop outletsestimated, ±60%

• One cap at each end of each run plus one outlet punched for each downspout. Small money individually, and it is counted rather than lumped because the count falls straight out of the roof form and the downspout calculation above.
• A stock crimped aluminium cap and a punched outlet sit at the bottom of the band; only a soldered copper cap or a fabricated one reaches the top of it.

Splash guards where a valley discharges onto the gutterestimated, ±38%

• A folded metal guard riveted to the inside of the gutter under the foot of a valley. Without one the water arriving down a valley in a heavy storm jumps clean over the front lip, and the homeowner concludes the new gutter is defective when it is simply not being asked the right question.
• Two of them on the complex roof form, which is the only form here that implies valleys: a gable has none and a simple hip has none either. It is a five-minute job and its minutes are inside the installation hours rather than on a line of their own.

Gutter installer: set the fall, hang the run and seal the joints

• Modelled at 0.05 crew-hours per foot of eave for seamless aluminium, plus about twenty-five minutes per mitred corner, then multiplied by the material factor and the storey factor. Two people hang between a hundred and a hundred and fifty feet of seamless aluminium in half a day, and that is what those hours reproduce.
• The material factor is not decoration. Vinyl is 1.05 because every ten feet is a joint to seat; steel is 1.25 because it is heavy and unforgiving to cut; copper is 2.1 because the joints are soldered and soldering is a trade rather than a step.
• BLS publishes no occupation called gutter installer. Seamless gutter is roll-formed aluminium coil worked on site, so the hour is priced at 47-2211, Sheet Metal Workers, which is the published trade that actually describes the work. The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.
• The fall is the part of this that is skill rather than time: roughly a quarter of an inch of drop for every ten feet, run towards the outlets. Too little and it holds standing water; too much and it looks wrong from the kerb and overshoots at the corner.

Bring the roll-former to the kerb, set up and clear the site

• Two crew-hours that do not scale with the length of the job: towing the roll-forming machine out, siting it, threading the coil, protecting the planting under the eave and clearing up at the end. Forty feet of gutter and a hundred and forty feet of gutter cost the same here.
• It is on the page because it is the reason seamless gutter installers quote a minimum. Without a line like this a per-foot model keeps sliding downwards on small jobs and prints a figure that no contractor would accept. What this line does not do is impose a floor: the trade minimum itself varies by market with no published schedule and is left out rather than averaged into a number that would be wrong everywhere.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Downspout pipe, vinyl, aluminium or steelestimated, ±44%

• Pipe only, priced per foot of vertical run. The length is not asked: it is derived from the eave height plus three feet for the offset at the overhang and the elbow at the bottom.
• The band spans a ten-foot length of 2×3 aluminium at the bottom and a heavy-gauge 3×4 in aluminium or steel at the top, which is the difference the six-inch upgrade brings with it. That upgrade is priced here rather than in the gutter upcharge so that the same pipe is never counted twice.

Copper downspout, round or rectangularestimated, ±44%

• Priced per foot of vertical run in the same way, at commodity copper rates. Round corrugated downspout runs a little under half-round gutter per foot because it is drawn rather than formed, and the band is wide for the same reason the gutter band is: this is a traded metal, not a catalogue item with a list price.
• Round corrugated downspout is the traditional partner to half-round gutter, and it is the visible half of what a copper job buys.

Elbows, offsets and wall straps per downspoutestimated, ±52%

• Two elbows at the top to bring the pipe back to the wall past the overhang, one at the bottom to turn the water away, and a strap every six feet or so. Counted per downspout because that is how they are bought and fitted.
• The count is scaled by eave height, at one extra strap for every six feet of drop above a single storey: a two-storey downspout is modelled at 1.3 sets and a three-storey one at 1.6. That is the arithmetic behind saying a taller house pays more here than a bungalow with the same number of downspouts, and it is in the code rather than only in this sentence.

Copper elbows, offsets and cast straps per downspoutestimated, ±45%

• The same set of pieces in copper with cast or formed brackets, which is where a copper job quietly separates from an aluminium one: the fittings cost several times what the pipe costs per foot. Scaled by eave height in the same way, because the straps go on at the same spacing whatever the metal is.
• The band separates stamped elbows with plain straps at the bottom from soldered offsets and cast decorative brackets at the top.

Gutter installer: form the offsets, hang and strap each downspout

• Modelled at about thirty-three minutes per downspout on a single-storey house and just under an hour on a two-storey one, because the run is twice as long and every strap is a ladder move. Multiplied by the material factor, since a soldered copper offset is a different task from crimping two aluminium elbows together.
• Where extensions are fitted, another nine minutes per downspout is added here to cut, fit and bed them. That is deliberate: the extension itself is a material line with no hours of its own, and a line of material with no labour anywhere would be saying the fitting is free.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Downspout extensions and splash blocksestimated, ±58%

• A downspout that discharges a foot from the wall has moved the water off the roof and left it against the foundation, which is the whole problem it was meant to solve. Extensions are the cheapest line here and the one with the largest effect per dollar.
• The bottom of the band is a concrete splash block or a hinged extension; the top is rigid pipe run six to ten feet out with its elbow. Material only — the minutes to fit them are on the downspout labour line above, which is where you can see them.
• Declared overlap: our basement waterproofing page prices this same item as a damp-proofing remedy, at a higher band, because there the piece being bought is the long rigid run that carries water clear of a wall that is already wet. Here it is the short one that finishes a new downspout. It is one purchase seen from two problems, and anyone doing both jobs buys it once rather than twice. Where the water goes after that is a French drain, and it is priced on that page.

Screen or foam gutter insertsestimated, ±49%

• The cheapest protection there is, and it is honest about what it does: it keeps leaves out and lets shingle grit, pine needles and seed pods through into the gutter below.
• The band separates a snap-in aluminium screen at the bottom from a moulded foam insert at the top. Neither is fastened to the roof deck, which is the thing some shingle warranties take exception to — read yours, because we have not read it.

Micro-mesh gutter guardestimated, ±45%

• Stainless mesh on a rigid frame, screwed to the front lip and the back of the gutter rather than slid under the shingle course. That distinction matters: anything wedged under the first course of shingles can lift them, and some roofing warranties say so.
• The band separates a contractor-grade panel at the bottom from a heavier surgical-grade mesh at the top. The upper half of it is where the branded, sold-at-the-door products sit.

Reverse-curve or surface-tension hoodestimated, ±42%

• A solid hood that relies on surface tension to pull water around the lip and into a slot. The most expensive option on this page per foot, and often more than the gutter it covers.
• It is worth knowing the trade-off before buying it: the same physics that carries water around the curve also lets a heavy downpour carry straight past the slot. It works best in exactly the climates that need it least.

Fit and fasten the gutter protection

• Modelled at roughly three quarters of a minute per foot for a drop-in screen, a minute and a quarter for screwed micro-mesh and two minutes for a reverse-curve hood, which has to be aligned to the shingle line along the whole run.
• Only the guard time is here. It is a separate line from the gutter installation so that the comparison between guarded and unguarded is visible instead of buried in one labour figure.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Replacement fascia board, primedestimated, ±53%

• Priced per linear foot of board actually replaced, not per foot of eave. This is the single commonest change order on a gutter job, because a gutter that has been overflowing for years has been soaking the board it is screwed to.
• The band spans primed pine at the bottom and a cellular PVC or composite board at the top. On a house where the gutter has already rotted one fascia, the top of that band is not an extravagance.
• The board is a shipped product and carries no regional adjustment. Cutting, fitting and priming it does, and that is on the line below.

Carpenter: cut out, replace and prime the fascia

• An hour and a half to set up and about nine minutes per foot to cut out the rotten section, scarf the new board in over the rafter tails, fix it, seal and prime the cut ends before the gutter goes back over it. Forty feet of rotten fascia is a carpenter’s day, and this is the line where an underestimate does the most damage, because it is the line that turns up as a change order after the crew is already on site.
• Priming the cut ends is the part that gets skipped and the reason the same board rots again in six years. It is inside these hours deliberately.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Aluminium coil to wrap the sound fasciaestimated, ±37%

• Flat coil stock bent on the same brake and folded over the face and the bottom edge of the existing fascia board, so the wood behind it never sees weather or a paintbrush again. The band separates plain white 0.019 coil at the bottom from heavier coil in a colour or a woodgrain finish at the top.
• This is the trade’s cross-sell and it belongs here because of when it can be done, not because of what it costs: the only moment the fascia is reachable without paying for the access twice is while the gutter is off. A homeowner who says no now pays the ladder and the staging again to say yes later.
• Wrapping is not repair. Coil over rotten wood hides the rot and traps the water that caused it, which is why this line and the fascia replacement line above are separate questions rather than one.

Sheet metal worker: brake and fit the fascia wrap

• Modelled at three and a half minutes per foot: measure the face, bend the piece on the brake, hook it over the top edge, nail it off at the bottom and lap each joint away from the prevailing weather. It is the same crew and the same machine that is already on the kerb for the gutter.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Drip edge flashing at the eaveestimated, ±47%

• A metal edge tucked under the first course of shingles and over the back of the gutter, so water that runs off the shingle lands in the gutter instead of wicking back onto the fascia.
• It is offered here because the gutter being off is the only moment it can be fitted without a roofer lifting shingles for nothing. Older houses very often have none at all.
• The band separates plain galvanised profile at the bottom from a painted or heavier aluminium one at the top.

Roofer: lift the first course and set the drip edge

• Modelled at about two minutes per foot: lift and free the bottom shingle course without cracking it, slide the flashing under, nail it off and reseal the tabs behind it.
• It is roofing work and it is priced as roofing work, at 47-2181. Doing it wrong breaks the shingle seal along the whole eave, which is the exact line the wind gets under.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Self-regulating heat cable, clips, junction box and controllerestimated, ±49%

• Priced per foot of EAVE, and the cable itself runs about three and a half times that: it zig-zags up the roof edge in two-foot triangles, then runs the length of the gutter and down every downspout. On a hundred feet of eave that is close to three hundred and fifty feet of cable, which is why a band that looks enormous per foot of eave is an ordinary one per foot of cable.
• The band spans constant-wattage cable at the bottom and self-regulating cable at the top, and it carries the clips, the roof hangers, the junction box and the thermostat or moisture controller as well as the cable itself.
• What it does is keep a drain path open through an ice dam. What it does not do is stop the dam forming, because a dam forms when heat escapes through the ceiling and melts snow that then refreezes at the cold eave. Cable is a symptom treatment; attic air sealing and insulation is the cause.

Electrician: GFCI outlet, controller and connection

• Two and a half hours to bring a protected exterior circuit to the eave and fit the thermostat or moisture controller, plus about a minute per foot of eave to route, clip and terminate the cable.
• Heat cable is a continuous load in wet conditions on the outside of a house, which is why it belongs on a protected circuit installed by an electrician and not on an extension lead through a window, which is how it is usually found.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Lead-safe containment: ground sheeting, tape and HEPA cleaning suppliesestimated, ±57%

• Plastic sheeting laid out on the ground along the whole eave line and weighted, plus tape, disposable coveralls, HEPA vacuum bags and the wet wipes used for the cleaning check at the end. Priced per foot of eave because that is what the sheeting has to cover.
• The EPA states that «approximately three-quarters of the homes in the United States built before 1978 still contain some lead-based paint», and that «anyone paid to perform work that disturbs paint in housing and child-occupied facilities built before 1978 must be certified in lead-safe work practices». Pulling gutter spikes out of a painted fascia disturbs paint.
• The EPA also states that «in general, the RRP Rule does not apply to homeowners doing RRP projects in their own pre-1978 homes». The words «in general» are theirs and are kept: this is a federal rule about lead in housing, and it is quoted rather than paraphrased for exactly that reason. What the rule reaches is whoever the homeowner pays.
• The band is wide because it depends on how much of the ground under the eave is planting, paving or a neighbour’s driveway. An eave over a flower bed needs far more sheeting than one over a lawn.
• One case this model does not catch: a fascia already wrapped in aluminium coil has no paint to disturb, and the rule turns on disturbing paint. There is no input for that here, so a house with wrapped fascia will be quoted high on these two lines.

Certified renovator: set containment, HEPA clean and record the job

• Three hours to lay out and secure containment, post the work area and deliver the Renovate Right pamphlet, plus nearly two minutes per foot of eave for the HEPA vacuuming, the wet cleaning and the cleaning verification with wipes at the end. Six-foot-wide sheeting along a hundred feet of eave is not a twenty-minute job, and the earlier version of this model said it was.
• BLS publishes no occupation called certified renovator. The person disturbing the paint here is the one removing the gutter and working the fascia, so the hour is priced at 47-2031, Carpenters. The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.
• This is routine, legal, certified renovation work under 40 CFR 745 subpart E. It is not lead abatement, which is a different activity with a different certification and is excluded from this page entirely.

Gutter sealant, rivets, screws and touch-upestimated, ±53%

• Butyl or tripolymer gutter sealant, pop rivets, colour-matched screws and touch-up paint for cut ends. One lot per job, because it does not scale usefully with length and pretending it does would be false precision.
• The top of the band is a copper or steel job, where solder, flux and matched fasteners cost several times what a tube of sealant and a box of rivets cost.

Crew lead: string the fall, check the run and sign off

• Somebody strings a line, marks a quarter of an inch of fall for every ten feet towards each outlet, and comes back at the end to check the finished run holds no standing water. Modelled at eighteen minutes plus about seven seconds per foot of eave.
• It is deliberately NOT a percentage of the crew hours, and it was. On a two-person gutter crew the lead is one of the two, so their working hours are already inside the teardown and installation lines; adding a share of all of them on top charges the same time twice. What is genuinely extra is the setting out and the sign-off, and that is all this line is.
• The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your metropolitan area; the hours are our estimate.

Not included in this dataset

Lead abatement, and any asbestos work

This page prices lead-safe work practices under the EPA renovation rule, which is what a certified renovator does on a pre-1978 house as part of a normal job. That is a different activity from lead abatement, which is permanent removal of a lead hazard, requires a differently certified firm and is deliberately not priced anywhere here. Older soffit and fascia assemblies can also contain asbestos-cement board, and if they do, nothing on this page applies to them: stop and have it assessed.

Roof, soffit and siding repair

Taking a gutter off exposes the edge of the roof, and what is behind it is sometimes worse than the gutter was. Rotten sheathing at the eave, failed soffit panels, damaged shingle courses and siding that was cut around the old gutter are all separate work with their own prices. Fascia is on this page because it is where the gutter fastens; the rest is not.

Downspout extensions counted twice, and buried drainage

Declared overlap with our basement waterproofing page, which prices downspout extensions as well. There they are a drainage remedy for a wall that is already wet, and the piece being bought is the long rigid run; here they are the last three feet of a new downspout system. It is one purchase seen from two problems: anyone doing both jobs buys the extensions once, not twice, and should take whichever page they are reading second as already paid for. What neither page prices is the buried version — a pipe run to daylight, a dry well or a tie-in to a perimeter drain is a drainage job measured in feet of trench, and it is priced on our French drain page rather than duplicated here where the two numbers would eventually disagree.

Permits and stormwater rules

Most jurisdictions do not permit gutter replacement. Some do regulate where roof water may be discharged, and a few prohibit connecting a downspout to a sanitary sewer at all. Fees and rules vary with no national schedule and are excluded rather than averaged into a figure that would be wrong everywhere.

Trade minimum charges on very small jobs

A seamless gutter crew has to tow the roll-forming machine to the kerb whether there are forty feet of gutter to hang or a hundred and forty, and most of them answer that with a stated minimum charge. Two crew-hours of mobilisation are priced on this page because they are real work; the minimum itself is not, because it varies by market with no published schedule. On a very short run — a porch, a single elevation, an addition — expect the quote to come back at a round number above what this calculator prints.

Gutter cleaning and ongoing maintenance

This is an installation figure, not a cost of ownership. Cleaning twice a year, resealing joints and re-fixing hangers that have worked loose are recurring costs, and on a two-storey house the cleaning is the larger of them over a decade.

What the overflowing gutter already damaged

Water that has been running down a wall or pooling at a foundation for years leaves consequences that a new gutter does not undo: stained or spalled masonry, a wet basement, settled soil against the footing. Those are diagnosed and priced elsewhere, and replacing the gutter is the step that stops them getting worse, not the step that reverses them.

Ice dam prevention beyond the cable

Heat cable is priced here because it is fitted at the same time as the gutter. It keeps a channel open through a dam; it does not stop one forming. The cause is heat leaking through the ceiling into the attic, and fixing that is air sealing and insulation work, priced on its own page.