Eavestroughs Before Winter: Cleaning, Guards and Downspouts

Eavestroughs get ignored until they fail, which is understandable. They are the least interesting part of a house. But in a Calgary winter they do a job that matters more here than in most places, and the failures are expensive in ways that are not obvious. A blocked eavestrough does not just overflow. It holds water at the coldest edge of your roof, in a climate that freezes and thaws all winter.

Why it matters more here

In a steadily cold winter, a full eavestrough freezes solid in November and stays that way. Calgary does not do that. A chinook thaws it, the water has nowhere to drain because the trough is packed with leaves, it refreezes overnight, and the ice expands.

That cycle does three things. It pulls the eavestrough away from the fascia, because expanding ice is heavy and forceful. It backs meltwater up at the roof edge, which is how ice dams form and how water gets under shingles. And it dumps whatever escapes beside your foundation, when the ground is frozen and cannot absorb it. The third is the expensive one: water pooling against a foundation through repeated freeze cycles is how basements get wet.

When to clean them

Twice a year is the general rule, and in Calgary the autumn clean is the one that matters. It wants doing after the leaves are down but before the snow stays, which in most years means late October into early November.

If you have mature trees over the house, particularly poplars or spruce, once in autumn will not be enough, because spruce needles pack into a dense mat that water will not pass through. The spring clean matters less, but whatever went in over winter is still sitting there.

How to check yours, safely

Most of this can be done from the ground. Look along the line of the eavestrough. It should run straight and sit tight to the fascia board. Sagging, or a gap between the trough and the board, means the hangers are pulling out or the fascia behind is rotten.

Look for plant growth, because anything green growing out of a gutter means there is enough soil and standing water in there to support it. Look at the ground at the bottom of each downspout: a trench worn into the soil means the water is landing there instead of being carried away. Check the siding directly below the trough for staining, which tells you it has been overflowing.

Look at the fascia board itself, the board the trough hangs on. Staining, peeling paint, or a soft spongy look means water has been running behind the trough rather than through it.

The functional test is to run a hose into the trough at the far end from the downspout and watch. Water should move steadily and leave through the downspout. If it sits, pools, or comes over the front edge, you have a blockage or a pitch problem. If you are not comfortable on a ladder, do not go up: this is one of the more common ways people get hurt around a house, and it is straightforward work for someone with the right setup.

Downspouts do most of the work

The trough only collects. The downspout is what actually moves the water away, and it is the part people forget. The important thing is where it discharges: water needs to be carried well clear of the foundation, onto ground that slopes away from the house. An extension that dumps water a foot from the wall is barely better than no downspout.

Check that the bottom elbow has not been knocked off, which happens constantly with lawnmowers and snow shovels. Check that the outlet is not buried under soil or mulch. In winter, check that the bottom is not sealed shut with ice, because a downspout frozen at the base backs the whole system up. We route downspouts away from the foundation as part of the work, because a correctly hung eavestrough discharging beside the wall has not solved anything.

Are gutter guards worth it?

Honest answer: sometimes, and they are not a substitute for maintenance. Guards reduce how often you clean, mainly by keeping leaves and larger debris out. Under heavy tree cover that can be the difference between three cleans a year and one. They do not make a system self-maintaining, because fine debris, shingle granules and spruce needles still get through on most designs.

They also have a specific limitation in a climate like ours: guards do very little about ice. A covered trough still freezes, and on some designs meltwater runs over the top of the guard and past the trough entirely. If you have mature trees over the roof, guards are worth considering. If you do not, the money is better spent making sure the trough is hung properly and the downspouts discharge where they should.

When to repair and when to replace

Localised problems are repairs: a leaking seam, one section that has come loose, a damaged length after something hit it, a downspout that needs rehanging. All straightforward, and we do section repairs rather than insisting on the whole run.

The signs that a system is done are more general. Sagging along multiple runs, because the hangers have lost their grip on the fascia. Seams separating in several places. Pitting and corrosion along the length. Repeated overflow even when the trough is clear, which usually means the pitch is wrong and has been since it went up.

The other reason to replace is the joins themselves. Older sectional eavestrough is made of lengths joined every few feet, and every joint is a future leak. Continuous aluminum eavestrough is formed in one piece for the whole run, so the only joins are at the corners and outlets. That is what we install, and on a house that has been fighting seam leaks for years it is usually the end of the problem.

Check the fascia and soffit while you are at it

These two get overlooked and they are part of the same system. The fascia is the board along the roof edge that the eavestrough hangs on, so if it is rotten, nothing you hang on it will stay straight. That is why a sagging trough is often a fascia problem rather than a gutter problem.

The soffit is the panel under the overhang, and it is what lets your attic breathe. Blocked or damaged soffit means the attic cannot take in air, and an attic that cannot breathe is the root cause of ice dams and of shingles ageing early from underneath. We replace rotted fascia boards and soffit panels, cap fascia in aluminum to match the eavestrough, and rehang the trough on the new board, usually in the same visit.

Most eavestrough work is a one-day job. If the roof is due anyway, doing both together makes sense, because the trough has to come off for a proper tear-off and the fascia is exposed while it is off. What we install and repair is set out on the eavestrough and gutters page, and the instant estimate gives you a range in about thirty seconds.