Although roof gutters are relatively easy to install, a simple misstep in their placement can render all your efforts to protect your roofing structure from water damage useless.
A general rule of thumb is to use your shingles as a point of measurement to get the accurate placement of your gutters.
We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of how to do this later. For now, let’s get you up to speed on all that this article will be covering.
You will learn how to get the right placement of your gutters from your shingles and on your fascia board and the basics of properly fixing a gutter in place.
Here’s the Distance Needed Between Gutters and Shingles:
Your roof gutters and roof shingles need not align at the same point. The gutters should be placed at least three to four inches away from your shingles to effectively collect water. It’s important that you put an adequate amount of distance between your gutters and your shingles so that your gutters can function properly.
How High Should Gutters Be on Fascia?
The fascia board is a horizontal panel that can easily be observed or identified on a house’s exterior. It covers the intricate parts of a roof and holds the overhead gutters in place.
These boards are delicate and must be properly installed alongside the roof gutters, otherwise, your gutters will be rendered useless as they will not be able to collect water efficiently.
The gutter is the trough responsible for collecting the water that runs off the roof when rain or hail falls. This component is vital in the water management system of a house, so it’s important that you’re super cautious when figuring out its placement.
When fixing the gutter, homeowners often ask how high the gutter should be compared to the fascia board or if they should be at par.
The gutter should be 1 ¼ inch shorter than the fascia board. The gutter is fixed on the fascia board in such a way that it is placed below the drip edge so that it can effectively collect water.
Fixing the gutter at the same height as the fascia is not wise move; it can cause the water to overflow.
Should Gutters Be Installed Close to Shingles?
It’s an undisputed fact that gutters are to go beneath shingles but a lot of people aren’t quite sure how close these fixtures should be to the shingles.
Roof shingles are decorative and protective pieces of materials usually placed on a roof as its final covering.
At the base part of the roof, just beneath the shingles, the overhead gutters are attached to collect the rainwater that’d inevitably come down on the shingles.
Homeowners and roofers often debate how close gutters should be to the shingles and the appropriate distance they should maintain between both structures to ensure proper water flow.
When installing your gutter, it should extend well beyond the roof shingles to allow for a seamless flow of water from the roof into the gutter trough.
Your gutter should not, in any case, align with your roof shingles. This is because the natural flow of water is downward.
You’d rarely have to worry about directing water on your roof in the right direction since most roofs have a slopey design.
Nevertheless, it is expedient that your gutters should be distanced from your shingles so that it matches the natural direction flow of water and properly collects water.
In other words, your gutter has to be correctly placed to maintain a sound water management system in your home.
When done wrongly, you might face challenges such as rotting of your roof shingles, leakages, and in extreme cases flooding.
How to Know if a Gutter is Fixed Correctly
Gutters serve an important function in a building. If it is not installed correctly, it can cause problems in a home.
It is quite possible to tell just by looking at the roof of a home whether or not a roof gutter was properly fixed.
Here is a list of things to look at when trying to identify whether a gutter is properly fixed.
- The primary function of your gutter is to drain water from the roof. If your gutter is fixed correctly, it will drain water from your roof and channel it efficiently to the drainage.
- There should be a slight slope in the gutter installation around the edges of your house. This slope has to be present so that the movement of the water into the downspout is smooth. So, if your gutter isn’t tilted at any point, it isn’t properly fixed.
- When you notice that your gutter is projecting downwards way past a tilt after the installation, it indicates that a poorly executed installation.
- When rain falls, you can walk around the house to see how your gutter is performing. If there is no leakage, it shows that your gutter was fixed correctly and will work fine.
However, if you notice that water is spouting from any point, especially the corners of the gutter, it indicates that something is awfully wrong.
- Your gutter should have a downspout attached to it. This is an integral part of your home’s water system. The pipe runs vertically from the overhead gutter to the drainage channel on the ground.
It will make no sense if your gutter is installed without a downspout because the water drained from the roof cannot stay in the gutter forever.
So, if your gutter is fixed without a downspout, you’ll need to get it replaced fast.
Summary
Gutters must be correctly placed on the roof to ensure that they function efficiently. Gutters must be placed at 1¼ inch below the roof shingles to collect the rainwater seamlessly.
When using roof shingles as a point of measurement, ensure that your gutter is at least three to four inches away from the shingles.
kindly note that the gutter should not be too close to the shingles, nor should it be too far away.
To know if your gutter is appropriately fixed, you can use the pointers in the previous subheading to check.
thisoldhouse.com/gutters/21016457/how-to-install-rain-gutters
homeinspectioninsider.com/this-is-how-far-a-gutter-should-extend-past-your-roof-edge/
mastershield.com/how-to-install-gutters/
