Eavestrough Repair in Edmonton — Defects, Costs and When to Replace

Defects

Eight eavestrough defects and what each one takes

Almost every call is one of these. The first four are repairs; the last four are where the conversation usually turns to replacing the run.

1. A sagging run

The trough dips between hangers, water pools in the dip instead of running to the downspout, and the standing weight pulls it further. Cause is nearly always spacing or hangers that have lost their grip in a rotted fascia board. Re-hanging a run and correcting the fall is a short job; if the fascia behind it has gone soft, that has to be dealt with first.

2. A split seam or a failed mitre

Sectional eavestrough is joined every few metres and at every corner, and those joints are where it leaks. Sealant fails, the two sections work against each other through freeze–thaw, and a stain appears on the wall below the corner. Re-sealing a mitre is cheap and buys years; a run that is leaking at several seams at once is telling you something.

3. The wrong slope

An eavestrough needs a consistent fall towards the downspout — a shallow one, but consistent. Too little and it holds water, freezes solid and grows algae; too much and it overshoots in heavy rain. Wrong slope shows as standing water or a tide mark inside the trough after it dries. It is fixed by re-hanging, not by sealing.

4. Pulled hangers, spikes and ferrules

Older Edmonton houses were hung with spikes and ferrules driven through the trough into the fascia. Ice and thermal movement back them out, the trough drops at that point, and the fascia is left with an open hole. Hidden hangers screwed into sound fascia are the modern fix, and they hold far better under ice load.

5. Holes, corrosion and dents

Pinholes at the bottom of a run, corrosion where debris sat wet for years, or a dented section under a hail-struck slope. Small holes are patchable. A trough that is corroded along its length is at the end of its life, and patching it is money spent twice.

6. A detached or crushed downspout

The downspout is what makes the whole system work, and it is also the part a ladder, a snowplough or a delivery van hits. If the leader is detached, crushed or discharging at the wall instead of away from it, the eavestrough above it can be perfect and the house still gets wet.

7. An ice-torn section

The distinctly Edmonton failure: ice builds in the trough, the weight tears it off the fascia, or expanding ice splits the seam and deforms the profile. Torn sections are replaced, and it is worth asking why the ice formed in the first place before the new metal goes up.

8. Overflow at a valley

Where a roof valley discharges into a run, the water arrives concentrated and fast, and a standard trough simply cannot swallow it in a downpour. The symptom is a waterfall at one spot with the rest of the run behaving perfectly. The fix is a valley splash guard, a larger outlet or a downspout placed where the water actually lands.

Repair or replace the run?

Four things decide it, and none of them is age on its own.

• How many sections are involved. One leaking mitre is a repair. Three seams on the same elevation means the sealant everywhere on that run is the same age.
• Sectional or continuous. Sectional gutter comes in fixed lengths and leaks where they join; seamless eavestrough is rolled on site in one piece per run, so it has no joints to fail along its length. Replacing old sectional trough with continuous 5-inch K-style removes the defect rather than repairing it.
• The state of the fascia. Nothing can be hung properly on a rotten fascia board. If the timber behind the trough has gone, that is the actual job — see soffit and fascia repair.
• Whether the roof is being done anyway. Eavestroughs come off for a replacement in any case, and re-hanging old trough on a new roof is a false economy of a few hundred dollars.

Where the water is supposed to go

The trough is only the first metre of the journey. Water leaves through the downspout, and the downspout has to put it far enough from the wall that it drains away from the foundation rather than into the backfill beside it. In this climate two failures are routine: a leader that discharges next to the wall, soaking the ground that freezes and heaves against the basement, and a downspout that discharges onto a walkway and turns it into a skating rink by November.

The cheap fixes are extensions, a splash block or a hinged leader that swings up for mowing and down for winter. If your basement is damp after heavy rain, look at this before you look at anything expensive.

What the work includes

• The run assessed with the roof. Hangers, slope, seams, outlets and the fascia behind it, photographed. Half of eavestrough problems are roof or fascia problems.
• Re-hanging and re-sloping. Hidden hangers into sound timber at proper spacing, with a consistent fall to the outlet.
• Seams, mitres and outlets re-made. Cleaned back to clean metal and re-sealed, rather than another bead of sealant over the last one.
• Downspouts reconnected and aimed. Secured, and discharging away from the foundation with an extension where the ground falls the wrong way.
• Debris out and a flush test. Water run through the whole system afterwards, because that is the only way to know the slope is right.
• The honest verdict on the rest. Which sections have years left and which are simply old, in writing, so you can plan rather than repeat the visit.

Winter

Eavestroughs and ice dams in Edmonton

An eavestrough does not cause an ice dam. Warm attic air melting snow on the upper roof does that, and the meltwater then refreezes at the cold eave. But a full or badly sloped trough makes the consequences considerably worse: the ice has a container to fill, the dam gets deeper and holds water higher up the slope, and the run itself is often what tears off under the weight.

So the eavestrough is worth fixing, and it is not the cure. The cure is upstairs — intake and exhaust ventilation, insulation depth and sealing the heat leaks into the attic. See ice dam roof damage, attic ventilation and why Edmonton roofs ice-dam. Guards and screens are worth the same warning: they keep leaves out, they do not stop ice.