Gutter guards in Bolton, CT

Three Alu-Rex systems, matched to a Bolton roof

Every quote comes down to one question first: do your gutters still work? Look for three things. The run should be straight, with no belly between the hangers. The seams and corners should stay dry in a rain. And the gutter should sit tight against the fascia board. If all three hold, you can keep the gutters and add a guard. If any one fails, a guard on top would hide a problem you will pay for later.

Keeping them means Gutter Clean Pro, a two-layer aluminum guard that fits over compatible existing gutters. Installed, it costs $18 per foot on 5-inch gutters and $20 per foot on 6-inch. For a lot of Bolton houses with sound gutters and mostly leaf debris, it is the least expensive way to stop climbing a ladder every fall.

Replacing them means choosing a guard built into the new gutter. T-Rex hangs the gutter on one continuous rail that doubles as the cover, so there are no gaps between brackets for the gutter to sag into. It runs $25 per foot for 5-inch and $29 for 6-inch. DoublePro layers a finer aluminum sheet under the perforated top, for $30 and $34. DoublePro carries a lifetime clog-free warranty, pine needles included, which makes it the one to price if needles or seed pods land on your roof. For the coverage on each system, see the warranty page.

Two more lines can appear on a Bolton quote. Downspouts are priced by the foot at $14, or $16 on a 6-inch system, and a two-story house can need a lot of them. Removing and hauling away old gutters adds $1 per foot. The pricing page shows the same numbers every caller hears, and the deposit never runs past one third of the job.

What Bolton's houses and weather mean for gutters

The housing first. Census estimates put 91.5% of Bolton's housing units in single-family detached houses. The median one was built in 1969. The 1950s saw more building than any other decade, with 429 units, and more than two hundred houses in town date from 1939 or earlier. A house from the 1950s or 1960s has usually had a new roof or two, so ask yourself whether the gutters were replaced along with it or left in place.

Then the rain. The long-term averages published for the Bolton ZIP code come to about 50.5 inches of precipitation a year, and no month averages less than 3.1 inches or more than 4.6. November is the wettest, at 4.64 inches, and it lands right as the last leaves come down. Most guards cope fine with a drizzle. Trouble starts in a downpour, and in a Bolton November a heavy rain can meet a gutter already holding a week of wet leaves.

Then the woods. Bolton Notch State Park, 95 acres of forest, caves, lakes and overlooks, sits inside the town. Statewide, the Council on Environmental Quality counts forest on about 58 percent of Connecticut's land. We will not guess what grows over your roof, so on the call we ask what drops into your gutters and when.

Snow on leaves is the other load. In the October 29-30, 2011 nor'easter, heavy snow fell on trees still in leaf across Connecticut. Hartford recorded a record 12.3 inches, Farmington took the state high of 24.0, and some customers waited into early November for power. A gutter hung on a continuous rail has support along its whole length when a branch or a slab of snow comes down on it.

If your house sits near the Green, it may fall inside the Bolton Green Historic District, added to the National Register in 2001, where the buildings are Colonial and Federal and the Greek Revival Bolton Congregational Church dates from 1818. Tell us on the call. For paperwork, the Building & Land Use Department at Town Hall takes permit applications online through the town's OpenGov portal; ask them about your job before work starts.

What does it cost to add guards to existing gutters in Bolton?

On gutters that pass the checks above, Gutter Clean Pro costs $18 per foot of 5-inch gutter or $20 per foot of 6-inch, installed. That rate covers the guard and the labor. Nothing is torn off, so there is no removal charge, and existing downspouts stay unless one is crushed or too small.

Your total is that rate times the length of your gutters. We measure the roofline remotely, count the corners and stories, and give you the number on the phone. If something on the house changes the answer, for example a run that has pulled away from rotten fascia, we say so on the call rather than after an installer arrives. That keeps the first number close to the last one.

Keeping sound gutters is the cheapest route to a covered gutter. It only makes sense when they are sound, which is why the first questions on the call are about their condition.

Is there one best gutter guard brand in the US?

We cannot point you to a fair national ranking, and we would be wary of anyone who claims to hold one. What you can check is whether a manufacturer publishes its test results and puts its warranty in writing, system by system.

Alu-Rex does both. Its test results are on its own website, and each system has its own warranty sheet, which is why our warranty page quotes them one by one rather than rolling them into a single promise. StormRail sells Alu-Rex systems, and certified Alu-Rex installers fit them. If you are comparing us with another company, ask them for the same two things: the published test data and the written warranty for the exact product going on your house. The page on how long gutter guards last covers what to look for in that warranty.

Call to install: every step

Three ways to start

• Call (617) 401-9301. It is answered any hour, and a missed call gets called back.
• Send the short form on the home page with your street address, and your number lands in your inbox.
• Text or chat through the chat window on this site.

1. 01

   Understand what you actually need

   About fifteen minutes on the phone: the length of the roofline, the number of stories and the trees around the house. The roofline is measured remotely, so nobody comes to the house to sell. You get your price the same day, from the published per-foot rates.

   • Gutters still in good shape: Gutter Clean Pro goes over the gutters you already have, from $18/ft.
   • Gutters that need replacing: new gutters with the guard built in. T-Rex (continuous hanger) from $25/ft, or DoublePro (two filtration layers) from $30/ft.
   • Fascia that cannot be drilled: Hover Pro, quoted for your house.
   • Complex rooflines, third stories and copper are quoted separately, and we say so on the call, never after arrival.
2. 02

   Your plan, in writing

   You get a written quote and your StormRail plan: photos of your house, the system, the gutter size and your color choices. The certified installer works from that same plan, so you and the installer are never on different pages.

3. 03

   A deposit capped at one third

   Massachusetts law caps a home-improvement deposit at one third of the contract. We hold to that in every state we work in. Your quote names the exact figure before you pay anything.

4. 04

   Material ordered and confirmed

   Your Alu-Rex system is ordered through the Alu-Rex distributor and confirmed before an install date is set, so the date you get is one the material can meet.

5. 05

   Scheduled with a certified installer in your county

   A certified Alu-Rex installer working in your area takes the job, and you get the date without chasing anyone. In season we're typically booking four to six weeks out. We'd rather tell you that now than promise you Tuesday and send whoever happened to be free. Emergency work — a collapsed run, active water in the basement — gets triaged ahead of the queue.

6. 06

   Installed

   The installer fits the system on the plan you already approved. Any balance is due as your quote states.

7. 07

   After the install

   We check in after the job is done. Each system carries its own written Alu-Rex warranty:

   • Gutter Clean Pro: manufacturing lifetime limited, clog performance lifetime limited, including coniferous areas
   • T-Rex: manufacturing lifetime limited, clog performance 25-year prorated limited
   • DoublePro: manufacturing lifetime limited, clog performance lifetime limited, including coniferous areas

Questions homeowners ask

Around Bolton

• Every town we cover in Tolland County: Gutter guards in Tolland County, CT
• Next door: gutter guards in Manchester, gutter guards in Vernon, gutter guards in Hebron