Most of Lakewood’s doubles, bungalows and colonials went up in wood between 1900 and 1930, with painted fascia and trim at every roof edge. The gutter is screwed or spiked into that fascia. So an exterior paint job keeps running into the gutter, and the run that comes down for it is the part of the job that tends to go wrong after the painters have packed up.
Do the gutters have to come off to paint a house?
Not always. A careful painter can cut in around a gutter and paint the fascia above and below it. The gutters come off when the board behind them is getting scraped and painted properly, or when it needs repair. Once they are down, putting them back is gutter repair in Lakewood work, with its own hangers and its own pitch to get right.
Leaving them up is a fair choice when the fascia is sound and the paint behind the gutter is holding. The strip hidden behind the trough gets less sun and less weather than the face of the board, and it often looks better than the rest when the gutter comes off. Taking them down earns its keep when the paint behind is peeling, when the color is changing and the strip would show, or when the scraper is likely to find something.
Who takes the gutters down and puts them back, the painter or a gutter crew?
Either one can, and the painting quote should say which. Ask whether taking the gutters down and re-hanging them is in the price, and what “re-hang” means to whoever is doing it. A run pushed back onto its old spikes, into the old holes, hangs at best for a season. A proper re-hang uses new hangers, resets the fall toward the downspout and reseals the outlets.
If the painting quote leaves the gutters out, or lists them as “remove and replace” with no detail, that is the gap to close before work starts, or the run can end up back on the house level, or sitting on the lawn for a week while each trade waits on the other.
Can the same gutters go back up after the fascia is painted?
Usually, if they came down without damage. A seamless aluminum run is one piece from corner to corner, and if it was lifted off without a kink it goes back up fine. Sectional gutter is less forgiving. In our judgment the joints between ten-foot pieces often break their seal when the run flexes on the way down, and those joints get cleaned and resealed before the run goes back.
Old steel is the exception. A steel run that has been rusting from the inside often does not survive the trip to the ground in one piece, and some of it should not go back even if it does. How much life is left in old steel gutters covers how to read the metal before you decide.
Whatever goes back gets two things the original install may not have had:
- New hidden hangers screwed into fresh wood a few inches from the old spike holes, not into them. Those holes are wallowed out and will not hold a fastener.
- Pitch set from scratch, falling toward the downspout outlet, checked with a level along the run, not eyeballed.
What does a painter’s ladder do to a gutter?
A ladder leaned on the front lip of a gutter can crush or kink it. An aluminum gutter gives under the weight of a ladder and a person on it, and the lip often stays pressed in where the rails sat. The dent is a low spot that holds water, and on a long front run it shows as a line of silt in one place after the next rain.
Crews that work around gutters use a standoff, the bracket that holds the top of the ladder against the wall or the roof instead of the gutter. Whether a given painter uses one is worth asking. After the painters leave, walk the house and look along each run from the end. A good gutter runs in a straight line with a slight fall. A kink, a flattened stretch of lip, or a hanger standing proud of the gutter face are the marks a ladder leaves. On a double, check the driveway side twice. That is where the ladder had the least room and went up at the steepest angle, often right against the gutter.
What if the scraper finds soft wood behind the gutter?
Then the gutter cannot go back on that board until it is repaired or replaced. What a gutter crew does about repairing a gutter on soft fascia, and when a carpenter should take the board instead, is on the repair page.
Can aluminum gutters be painted to match the new trim?
Yes, with the right prep, and it is a fair choice when the gutters are sound and the color is the only problem. In our judgment, field paint on aluminum needs upkeep the factory finish does not. It tends to chip at the lip and around the hangers, where ladders and ice hit it, and a gutter painted once usually gets painted again with the trim.
The other route is a new color-matched seamless run, picked from the standard aluminum colors to sit with the new trim. That makes most sense when the old gutters were coming down anyway and were already dented or leaking at the joints.
Does lead paint on an old Lakewood house change the gutter work?
It can. EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule requires that anyone paid to perform work that disturbs painted surfaces in homes built before 1978 be certified, and their employees trained in lead-safe work practices. Most of Lakewood went up long before 1978, and the fascia behind the gutter has been painted many times since.
Taking a gutter off painted fascia and screwing new hangers into it disturbs that paint, and so does the scraping that comes after. Ask each contractor touching the fascia whether their firm is lead-safe certified. EPA says the rule generally does not apply to homeowners working on their own home, but it does apply if you rent out all or part of it, as on an owner-occupied double with a tenant in the other unit. EPA’s RRP program page sets out who it covers.
What does re-hanging gutters after a paint job cost?
A re-hang of a run on new hangers, with the pitch reset, falls in the gutter repair range, $150 to $350. A section the ladder kinked past straightening is a section replacement, $12 to $20 per ft, $250 minimum. The cost page lists what a re-hang runs beside the rest of the price sheet.
Ask for the gutter price written separately from the paint price, even when one contractor is doing both, so it is clear who owns the gutter if it sags in March.
Should the gutter crew come before the painters or after?
Both. The gutters come down before the scraping starts, so the whole board can be scraped and inspected, and anything soft gets found while the house is still open. They go back up after the paint on the fascia has cured, which the paint label spells out. Hanging them too soon leaves hanger marks in soft paint and traps fresh paint against the back of the trough.
The re-hang visit is also the easy time to get the gutters cleaned and the downspouts flushed, since every run is already reachable and every outlet is already open. Book that visit when you book the painters, so the house is not sitting without gutters through a rain.