Though your home’s gutters are likely one of its more taken-for-granted exterior features, this is an incredibly important system when it comes to protecting your home from water damage and your property’s foundation from degradation. As you likely know, gutters serve the role of distributing water runoff from your home’s roof safely away from your property. Gutters that leak or are clogged are likely to lead to water pooling in areas around your home’s foundation — and water does a great job of finding its way into the likes of basements and crawl spaces.
While gutters are important in preventing home damage, you might not know that there are different types of gutters you can select from. One popular type of gutter is seamless gutters. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what seamless gutters are, how they differ from conventional gutters, their benefits and more. Here’s a closer look:
Seamless Gutters Explained
There are two main types of gutters: seamless gutters and sectional gutters. Sectional gutters are usually cut into 10 to 20-foot sections and connected during installation on the home. Seamless gutters, conversely, are all one piece. In other words, there are no connections along the gutters — just think of them as custom-made to fit your home. In fact, they’re usually either formed on-site or in a special prefabrication shop.
Though seamless gutters are often a bit more expensive than conventional sectional gutters (more on this later), property owners can realize ROI in several significant ways. We’ll discuss this as well as other benefits associated with seamless gutters in the next section.
Benefits of Seamless Gutters
As we hinted at in the previous section, there are a variety of benefits to selecting seamless gutters over the more conventional sectional gutters. Here’s a look at some of them:
Enhanced Strength, Rigidity
Seamless gutters consist of single pieces of gutters, which are essentially custom-made for your home. Because of this, and their aluminum or copper makeup, they offer enhanced strength and rigidity compared to conventional gutters. Most seamless gutters are made from aluminum, which offers a great strength-to-weight ratio and can last for up to 20 years before replacement is necessary. Copper gutters can even last upwards of 50 years.
For comparison’s sake, conventional steel gutters tend to last for as little as 10 to 12 years before replacement is necessary.
Reduced Chance of Leaks
One of the biggest benefits of selecting seamless gutters for your home is that the one-piece makeup significantly reduces the chance of leakage. Remember, the main purpose of your home’s gutters is to safely distribute rain and snowmelt away from the foundation of your property. With conventional gutters that are joined together in 10- to 20-foot sections, there’s a chance that these types of gutters will leak at the connections over time. When this occurs, gutters will need to be properly repaired or else water could pool around your home’s foundation, potentially leading to water intrusion and mold growth.
Wide Range of Color Options
Gutters these days are available in a wide range of color options, and seamless gutters are no exception. It’s easy to match seamless gutters with the trim of your home to ensure they complement the design of your home and enhance its curb appeal. If you don’t like the color palette that seamless gutters are available in, it’s easy to paint aluminum.
Ease of Maintenance
While we hit on this benefit to an extent earlier in this piece, it’s worth mentioning again: Seamless gutters are incredibly easy to maintain. Since their makeup consists of the minimum amount of connections possible, these gutters are far less prone to leaks compared to conventional gutter systems. As a result, you can have more confidence that your gutters are serving their role of safely moving water away from your property’s foundation.
Additionally, the durability of aluminum gutters ensures that they’re long-lasting. Aluminum is also a material that will not rust and is corrosion-resistant. Conventional steel gutters have a tendency to rust and corrode over time, and vinyl gutters can warp and become brittle.
Seamless Gutters Pros & Cons
Though seamless gutters have plenty of advantages, many of which we covered in the above section, there are also a few notable drawbacks that are worth considering as well. Here’s a look at some of the considerations that you should be weighing when it comes to selecting what type of gutters are right for your property:
- Cost: Because they’re custom-made and involve a different fabrication process (and different materials) compared to conventional gutters, seamless gutters are often more expensive. Additionally, installing seamless gutters isn’t typically a DIY job that homeowners can carry out — it takes a professional to fabricate the gutters and install them to ensure a perfect fit.
- ROI: It’s important to consider ROI when making your gutter selection. Though seamless aluminum or copper gutters are more expensive than conventional sectional gutters and the materials they’re made from, they also last longer, are more maintenance-friendly and do a better job of preventing household damage. It’s important to ask yourself whether or not paying a bit more upfront is worth these aforementioned benefits.
Contact K-Guard today for more information on seamless gutters and the advantages that they hold over conventional gutter systems.
