Gutter Guard Installation in Akron, OH

Nobody arrives on install day seeing your house for the first time. The owner of Guttrz has already stood on a ladder at each side of it. He measured every run, pressed on the fascia boards, checked how the gutters hang and which way they tilt, and noted whether they are 5 inch or 6 inch.

You have his photo report and one written price in hand. Install day simply follows that plan. Anything that could have changed the job was photographed and priced before you agreed to it. The steps before this one are laid out on the page about how a quote works.

Every run is emptied by hand first. The debris goes into bags and leaves with us. It does not get dumped on your devil strip for the city to deal with.

After that, a hose goes into the top of every downspout and runs until the water leaving the bottom is clear. In Akron the usual blockage is at the first elbow, where oak leaves and acorns wedge together and maple seeds sprout in the muck. Shingle grit settles underneath like wet sand. A guard laid over a packed elbow only hides the problem, so the flush always comes before the mesh.

Corners and seams that drip get resealed while the gutter is open and dry. Many older Akron downspouts empty into buried clay tile. If water backs up at ground level during the flush, the photos will show it. Clearing a buried line is a separate trade and is not part of a guard install.

Mesh needs a straight, firm edge to sit on. Gutters on houses from the 1920s through the 1950s were often hung on long spikes driven through the front lip. Decades of ice and wet leaves work those spikes loose, and the run begins to sag.

Where a spike has backed out or a run dips, hidden hangers are screwed into the rafter tails. That is a small fix and it is part of the install. Rehanging or resloping an entire run is a bigger job. If your house needs it, you will have seen it as its own line on the written price. It is never added on the day.

Each panel is screwed to the fascia board and to the front lip of the gutter. The roof is left alone. No shingle is lifted and nothing is tucked beneath one.

Corners take the most care. An inside corner sits below a roof valley, where two slopes pour into one spot. The frame and the mesh are both cut to the angle and joined as a miter, so the corner is closed instead of patched with a loose flap. Outside corners are cut the same way. End caps shut the open end of each run, which keeps birds and wasps from moving in underneath.

Short runs get the same treatment as long ones. That includes the little gutters on dormers and over front porches that many Akron colonials and bungalows carry. Corners are not billed one by one.

Before the ladders come down, a garden hose is run over the finished mesh along each side of the house. We watch the water drop through, travel the length of the run and leave by the downspout.

The spots below valleys get extra attention, since that is where a hard rain moves fastest. If water skips across the mesh anywhere, that section is adjusted and tested again while we are still there.

You get pictures that same day: the finished guards, each corner, each downspout outlet. The manufacturer's warranty paperwork comes with them.

If something looks wrong afterward, say so. Report a fault in the installation and it is put right inside 30 days, free. The workmanship itself is covered for ten years. The warranty page explains which promise covers what.

There is not much to do, and you do not have to be home as long as every side can be reached.

• Move cars out from under any gutter, including the one over the garage door.
• Unlock side gates.
• Keep dogs indoors for the day.
• Pull grills, planters and patio chairs a few feet off the walls.
• Point out sprinkler heads, buried pet fences and plants you care about.
• Tell us which outdoor faucet we may use for the flush and the hose test.

Nobody works from a ladder in rain, on ice, in high wind or with snow sitting on the roof edge. In an Akron winter that means installs go ahead on dry days and slide a day or two when the weather turns. Your price does not move when the date does.

Guards can go on in any month, because the cleaning is built in whatever the gutters hold. Many people wait until the city's leaf trucks have been through their ward and their own trees are bare. The post on how Akron's leaf collection works covers that timing. If your gutters are already overflowing, there is no reason to wait for it.

For houses with spike-hung gutters, steep rooflines or original trim, read the page on guards for older Akron homes next.