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Advice needed: What to do about our gutters?

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

I’m hoping that someone out there who knows more than I about rain gutters, who has done work on their own gutters similar to what I’m considering, or who has used one of the companies I’m considering, will be able to provide some helpful insight and advice…

We use Ned Stevens (NS) to clean our gutters several times each year. The last two times they cleaned our gutters, they informed us that several of the gutters have separated from the fascia boards and need to be replaced. When I asked whether they could repair the gutters instead, they were adamant that only replacement would solve the problem.

Because this seemed fishy to me, and because I try to always get multiple estimates before doing any major work on my home, I called New England Gutter Kings (GK) and asked them to come out and give me three estimates:

cost of repairing the existing gutters, if in their opinion they could be repaired;
cost of installing all new standard gutters; and
cost of installing their “King Cover” covered gutter system, which has a lifetime warranty against blocked gutters (i.e., they claim that we’ll never need to have our gutters cleaned again, and if the gutters ever get blocked, GK will come out and clear them for free).

The estimator from GK seemed very professional and said:

As far as he could tell from looking at them from the ground, there’s no reason why our existing gutters can’t be repaired, and GK will do it for $400, which includes installing new flashing everywhere to ensure that rain drips solidly into the gutters rather than leaking behind them.
Installing all new gutters will cost $1,652.
King Cover can be installed either on our existing gutters or on the all new gutters for $1,360. If we install it on our existing gutters, then repairs to the existing gutters are included so we won’t have to pay the $400.

All of this seemed perfectly reasonable. Then I asked NS for similar estimates. They said the following:

Replace bad gutters for $608 (which takes into account a 10% discount for being on their annual service plan).
Replace all gutters for $963 (again includes 10% discount).
Annual service plan, which includes minor repairs and four gutter cleanings, is $384.
They don’t recommend gutter cover systems, because debris and small animals get into them (i.e., they don’t really work as advertised) and then it’s difficult to clear the blockages because of the covers.

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