Gutter Guards for Older Homes in Akron, OH

Akron's population roughly tripled in the ten years after 1910, and the houses came with it. Goodyear Heights was laid out from 1912. Firestone Park followed in 1915. Kenmore did most of its growing in the same decade, and Wallhaven filled in through the 1920s and 1930s.

So a house with hundred-year-old rafters is ordinary here. The gutters on it have usually been replaced once or twice. The wood they hang from often has not. Three things age along that line: the board, the fasteners and the slope. A guard depends on all three.

The Leaf Solution guard screws into the fascia, the flat board that runs along the ends of the rafters. On an old house the owner checks that board before he measures anything else.

He presses on it with a tool, especially at the joints, behind downspout brackets and below roof valleys, where water has had the most chances to get behind the gutter. Every soft spot is photographed.

Age alone is not a problem. Old boards that have stayed dry are often dense and hold a screw well. A soft section is different. It gets replaced before a guard goes near it, and the photo report shows you exactly which feet are involved.

Some bungalows of that era have no fascia at all. Their rafter tails are left exposed as a design feature, and the gutter hangs from straps or brackets. A fascia-mounted guard needs a board to fasten to. If your eaves are open, you will hear that at the visit, not on install day.

For decades the usual way to hang a gutter was a long spike driven through the front lip, through a metal sleeve, and into the wood behind. It works until it does not. Each winter, ice loads the gutter and the wood swells and shrinks around the spike. After enough years the spike backs out a little, then a lot.

You can spot it from the yard. Spike heads stand proud of the gutter face, and the run dips between them. Mesh laid on a dipping gutter will dip too, and water will pool on it.

The cure is a hidden hanger that clips inside the gutter and screws into the rafter tail. Where a run sags or spikes have let go, those hangers go in as part of the guard job. Swapping every hanger on the house is offered as an upgrade for owners who want it done once and for all.

The Tudors and colonials that Akron built in the 1920s have steep roofs. Rain comes off a steep slope fast, and a valley between two slopes gathers it into a stream aimed at one inside corner.

Two things help. First, the guard sits at the gutter and fastens to the fascia, so the roof covering is never disturbed. That matters on old shingles that have gone brittle. It matters even more on an old slate roof, where nobody should be prying at a slate to fit a gutter guard. Second, every valley corner is mitered and then tested with a hose before we leave.

Steep and tall runs are slower to work on, which is why they carry the higher of the two per-foot rates. The cost page explains the split.

Not every old gutter can take this guard, and it is better to say so here.

Built-in box gutters are troughs framed into the eave itself and lined with metal, hidden behind the cornice. They were built into some houses of the early 1900s. The Leaf Solution guard is made for K-style gutters, the kind with a flat back and a shaped front that hang on the fascia, in 5 inch and 6 inch widths. It does not fit a box gutter.

Half-round gutters have a rolled lip and a different shape. They need a different product.

If your house has either one, the owner will tell you during the visit instead of forcing a fit.

Most old gutters only need small repairs. A dripping corner gets resealed. A sagging run gets new hangers. Some gutters are simply finished, though, and mesh on top would be money wasted. The signs are easy to read:

• rust holes in old galvanized steel
• seams that have split open
• a run bent or twisted where it pulled off the house
• water standing along a whole run even after the hangers were reset

In those cases new seamless aluminum gutters go up first and the guards are fitted to them. Guttrz can price both together, each as its own line, so you can see what belongs to the gutters and what belongs to the guards.

Old houses have more roof edges than new ones. A dormer has a short gutter of its own. So does the front porch, and often a bay window. Each one gets mesh, mitered corners and end caps like the main roof.

Watch for an upper downspout that empties onto a lower roof. The gutter below it carries water from both, and it is usually the first on the house to overflow. It is checked twice during the hose test.

From here, the page on gutter guard installation in Akron walks through the day itself, and the post about rubber-era worker cottages looks at the smallest of these houses.