Aluminum or steel gutters

[Jeffery]

I am planning to get new leaf-guard type gutters for my home. I can get either aluminum or steel for about the same price.
Which would you recommend?




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[gracielagata]

I can't say anything about steel, but we have aluminum and they've held up well, aside from my husband deciding to have a go at the ice dams with a screwdriver this past winter... lol But I imagine steel would've been nicked as well...
No trees near the house, gutters are about 3 years old.
Not sure if that helps.

[horseyrider]

Jul 10, 2016 4:22:09 GMT gracielagata said:

I can't say anything about steel, but we have aluminum and they've held up well, aside from my husband deciding to have a go at the ice dams with a screwdriver this past winter... lol But I imagine steel would've been nicked as well...
No trees near the house, gutters are about 3 years old.
Not sure if that helps.

gracielagata, I think we're married to the same man.  Didn't want to use a blow dryer or heat gun.  NO-o-O. 

Jeffery, mine are aluminum, and I got the extra large ones so they could move more water at any given time.  I have them on the house and the barn.  Since they're painted, I don't notice any corrosion; and if I do something awful to them with the lawn mower, I can fix or replace pretty easily.

I do have steel siding on my house, and I like it.  It's far more resistant to hail damage, ladder dents, etc.

I wasn't much help, was I?

[gracielagata]

horseyrider, Hahaha!!! Ours are the extruded aluminum that we got done in the color of our house at the time, then got the needed new siding of course the next year, so had to paint them... which has held up well, aside from the screwdriver attacks.

Steel siding on your house... where do you live? I suppose your insulation is very good as well, to stand up to the hot sun on it? But very cool, haven't seen one of those, i don't think...
Our barn is a metal (steel) pole barn, and we are contemplating a metal roof for the house when it needs replacing...

[horseyrider]

gracielagata, I live in Illinois. And yes, the insulation is excellent, although the steel siding doesn't seem to make any difference in the amount of heat in the house. Unless the furnace is on, the house is always about five degrees cooler than outside. It's an old farmhouse, built shortly after the Civil War, out of real honest two inch by six inch lumber framing, plaster, and lathe. When we had insulation installed, the contractor was chagrined to find out he was way short on his estimate of the amount of material needed to blow in. He based his estimate on today's two by fours, which of course aren't really two inches by four inches. I love my old house! It was built before electricity and of course fans, so windows and air movement were a main concern in design. It's such a comfortable house in the summer. I can can in the kitchen and feel like I'm outside. But in the winter it's a little cold in the northwest corner, especially upstairs.

We have steel siding on our corncrib. It wasn't needed anymore for that job, so it became a little machine shed, workshop, woodshed, and home for our solar inverters. It does get hot in there sometimes. And there's a steel roof on that and the barn. The barn is wood, with a very large cement slab, built a little more than a hundred years ago. The cement slab holds heat in the winter and releases it slowly, and holds cool in the summer. It's always cooler in the barn than outside this time of year, too; but paradoxically, a little warmer in the winter.

[gracielagata]

So the steel siding is original then to its build? I would love to see photos, if you were okay sharing a few. I love seeing old houses. And I love how the windows and placement of the house were all taking wind use and sun block/use into consideration as well.
I bet you made great friends with that contractor! What happened with the estimate? You still paid the larger, full price, I assume, since it was only an estimate?

[grannyg]

We have aluminum....they run directly into our large rain barrels and have held up well...

[paquebot]

Had aluminum gutters installed on the house about 30 years ago. Probably going to last another 30. At same time, had some leftover steel gutters where I worked and they went on garage. House gutters empty into that and then two rain barrels. This spring, first good rain collected only a few gallons. Thought maybe something was obstructing the flow. Swept it out and found that rust was the only thing holding it together. Replaced it with vinyl.

Martin

[wolfmom]

I have aluminum gutters. Had a large limb fall on the roof and put a large dent in the gutter. Sure was easy to bend/pound out the dent.. Not sure it would be so easy with steel.

I think I'd find out the life expectancy along with maintenance of each type gutter and that would be my criteria.

What's your thinking on not getting vinyl? I had that on my last house and it worked well.

[gracielagata]

wolfmom, But had the tree fallen on your vinyl gutters, they wouldn't have been repairable, correct?

[paquebot]

If there is enougn force to damage a vinyl gutter, it is enough to destroy an aluminum gutter. A tree branch smashed the end of one of my aluminum gutters. I hammered it back somewhat but kinks were impossible to flatten. I was a metal fabricator for 27 years and no way to restore it close to original. And, no way to fit an end cap back onto it.

Martin

[horseyrider]

Jul 10, 2016 20:55:18 GMT gracielagata said:

So the steel siding is original then to its build? I would love to see photos, if you were okay sharing a few. I love seeing old houses. And I love how the windows and placement of the house were all taking wind use and sun block/use into consideration as well.
I bet you made great friends with that contractor! What happened with the estimate? You still paid the larger, full price, I assume, since it was only an estimate?

Nah, the steel siding was added about fifty years ago.  It's still pristine, except for some places where the paint has finally worn off on southern exposures.  An adjustor for the state came out one time, going from house to house after a particularly bad storm that had huge hail stones.  He told me that everyone needed to get their insurance stuff wrapped up before the November deadline or repair it themselves.  I told him I had no damage and he was incredulous.  He asked what I had, aluminum or vinyl?  I said steel.  He repeated "STEEL?!"  I told him I was considering changing it and he told me to not do it; it wears forever and is stronger than either aluminum or vinyl, so he said to paint it.  It's galvanized-looking and tougher than you would believe.  This past storm tossed a limb from a tree into it that was six inches across and about twenty feet long, and I have a dent and a rub mark that are nearly invisible. 

Now here's an irony.  Due to that storm and that little dent and rub mark (that's about fifteen feet up on a side where we rarely go), my insurance adjustor told me that they need to replace the siding.  My policy is for replacement; they will make me whole.  If they can still find the pattern, they'll replace only that west side.  But if they can't, they'll replace the whole house.  With steel.  I feel like I'm in crazytown!!!

I wish I had some pictures that would be easy to show.  I have a photobucket account but every time I use it, it tries to crash my computer.  No kidding, screen goes black and everything.  My house is just an old farm house in the middle of the prairie, but a couple of the windows are unique.  In the livingroom there are two windows that go from the floor, up eight feet toward a ten foot ceiling.  They're huge, and back in the day they opened on to the front porch so that cool air could get in across the floor easily.  They're long since painted shut, but they're so beautiful.  The only other place I've ever seen windows like that is in the state park in the middle of downtown Springfield Illinois, across the street from the house that Abraham Lincoln lived in at the time he was elected to the Presidency.  So it must have been sort of fashionable back in the Civil War days.

And yeah, I ended up paying a little bit more for the insulation.  But the guy was so embarrassed, he cut me a deal.

[horseyrider]

This is a picture of that house across the street from Abraham Lincoln's. You can see the two big windows and how the sashes work where the bottom half is two-thirds of the length of the window. I'm certain my sash weights are gone, so I bet lifting them would be interesting. And unfortunately, the way the window goes all the way to the floor is blocked by the fence. But you can see the front door, and get a good idea.



I hope this works.

[gracielagata]

horseyrider, I bet your house is beautiful, to see that one! Is that house metal as well?
And most definitely crazytown with the full replacement! Holy cow!! Do you have to make the claim, or can you let it be and hope there is never a need, since it sounded minor? I can only imagine how costly it is to replace!

Sash weights... I assume it is a counter balance of sorts to help lift the uber-heavy window sash up? Interesting.
I bet large windows make for interesting curtain/covering sizing!

[gracielagata]

paquebot, But my question was more meant that if a tree hits a vinyl gutter, will it not crack, since there is nothing to support it from crumpling/cracking? Whereas, yes aluminum will as well, but it isn't likely to flat out crack, but rather smoosh in and possibly be unbent and reused?

[paquebot]

gracielagata,Vinyl is just another word for plastic and a soft plastic at that. A length of vinyl siding can be bent into two circles and not break. Vinyl gutters can be squeezed tight together at the top and pop right back. Metal gutters won't do that. Squeeze a plastic bottle and it pops back. Theb squeeze a tin or aluminum can. There's your answer.

Martin

[horseyrider]

Jul 11, 2016 23:29:36 GMT gracielagata said:

horseyrider , I bet your house is beautiful, to see that one! Is that house metal as well?
And most definitely crazytown with the full replacement! Holy cow!! Do you have to make the claim, or can you let it be and hope there is never a need, since it sounded minor? I can only imagine how costly it is to replace!

Sash weights... I assume it is a counter balance of sorts to help lift the uber-heavy window sash up? Interesting.
I bet large windows make for interesting curtain/covering sizing!

I don't believe that house is metal.  I'm pretty sure it's still clapboard, as mine was originally.  And yes, a sash weight is in the wall, connected on the side to the window itself by a rope that runs over a pulley.  And yes, those windows were an arm and a leg to get curtains for!  I had to have them made.

From what I understand, since there was damage to the roof of the house and a toolshed, I have to make a claim anyway.  The insurance adjustor was very thorough, and she was the one who found the tiny dent.  What a pleasant change, to find someone who is interested in doing right by me!  And from what I understand, my premiums are unlikely to go up, since I'm a long time customer and this was an act of God, and any mitigation would have been impossible.  Getting hit by a tornado and having to make a claim is a lot different from having a broken step, failing to fix it, and then someone breaks their leg.

She made me laugh, too.  The barn had minor damage (a single board torn off, but it'll require scaffolding or a cherry picker to replace) so I told her that she could look at it from the inside.  We walked in the aisle and she said "It's so clean!"  She said it again when we went in the loft.  I wondered what she'd say if she saw some of the show barns I used to go to.  In one place where I went to look at a prospect for jumping, I got there a little early and found the trainer sweeping up about a tablespoon of dirt and bedding off the floor.  I'll never forget that guy's saddle.  Many western show saddles have lots of silver.  This guy's saddle was covered in Black Hills gold.  It was stunning.

I rambled. 

[Rustaholic]

Somewhere around here I have several old time cast iron sash weights. I have a couple small ones that came out of a house and I have some huge ones that came out of an old brick school building

[gracielagata]

paquebot, I would not have expected that, as I have seen vinyl gutters which have been damaged by weedwackers, if I remember correctly. I thought they flat out just cracked.

horseyrider, Very nice to have a good insurance agent, isn't it? We've never had a claim against us for the cars, but a few small accidents by others against us- they came out and made sure personally hat all the repairs were done as specified. It covers them as well, I know.
We had to claim the laminate flooring right after we moved into our (current and only one ever owned) house. They were great then too. Told us we could do the demo and get paid like a contractor. We made $2000 doing it, which allowed us to mega upgrade to lux. vinyl sheet tile in the kitchen, and to go down the hall with laminate, where previously it was carpet.
We also have/had a freebie, no increase repair of the entire side of my car on the books, but chose to not do it, as it is purely cosmetic. and even though I hate the dents, I am the superstitious type that figures once we would have repaired it, something worse woulda happened. My husband got in an argument with 2 trees at about 1/2 a mile an hour in the country when we were camping... we tried to drive between them, had measured- we totally fit- but there was a lump sticking out at the root we didn't factor for, it pushed the car ever so slowly into the other tree, which also had a lump right in line with the side of my car... screeeech down the side..