Gutter guards in Cranston, RI

Three ways to guard a Cranston gutter, and what each costs

Start with the gutter you already have. Look at it from the lawn during a hard rain. Does water sheet over the front lip? Do the seams drip at the corners? Does the run sag between hangers? If the answer to all three is no, Gutter Clean Pro can sit on top of it. That is the lowest-cost route: $18 a foot on a 5-inch gutter and $20 on a 6-inch one.

If the gutter is tired, putting a guard on it is money spent twice. A lot of Cranston housing dates from the 1950s or earlier, and an old gutter that has been patched for years will not outlast a new guard. Then the better spend is a new seamless gutter with T-Rex. T-Rex is one aluminum piece that covers the gutter and holds it to the fascia along the whole run, so there are no spikes or clips to work loose. It is $25 a foot for 5-inch and $29 for 6-inch, with the gutter included.

DoublePro is T-Rex with a second, finer perforated sheet under the top one. That lower layer stops what slips through a single screen: pine needles, maple seeds, oak tassels and the grit that sheds off aging shingles. DoublePro carries a lifetime clog-free warranty, pine needles included. It runs $30 a foot in 5-inch and $34 in 6-inch.

Two things are priced outside the gutter rate. Downspouts are $14 a foot for the standard size and $16 for the larger one, and taking down an old gutter is $1 a foot. Each shows up as its own line on the quote. The pricing page lists every rate, so you can check the number you hear on the phone.

Cranston's old housing, its newer west side and the 2010 flood

By housing age, Cranston is an old city. Census estimates count 9,829 housing units built in 1939 or earlier, more than in any single decade since, and the median Cranston home dates from 1958. The 1950s and 1960s add more than 10,000 units between them. Of the city's 33,834 housing units, about 63% are detached single-family, and another 3,896 are in two-unit buildings. The neighborhoods and villages run from Edgewood, Knightsville and Pawtuxet Village to Garden City, Meshanticut, Oak Lawn, Western Hills and Fiskeville, and the rate per foot is the same in every one of them.

West of Interstate 295 the picture changes. Cranston has a large semirural section out there, and it has seen a high volume of new housing in recent years. A newer house usually has gutters that are still sound, which makes it a candidate for a guard on top instead of a full replacement. We still ask how the gutter behaves in a downpour, because a gutter in good shape can still be too small for the roof above it.

Then there is the water. From March 29 to 31, 2010, 6 to 10 inches of rain fell across Rhode Island and pushed the month past 16 inches. The Pawtuxet River at Cranston crested at 20.79 feet on the morning of March 31, where flood stage starts at 9 feet, and broke a record that had stood for only a week and a half. In Cranston, I-95 was shut along with the Airport Connector, and many roads around Cranston and West Warwick were closed. A gutter has no say over a river. Its job is smaller and still matters: carry the roof's own water well away from the foundation, so it is not poured onto ground that is already soaked.

For an ordinary year, the long-record NOAA station for this part of Rhode Island is at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick. Its 1991-2020 normals show 47.54 inches of precipitation, 36.6 inches of snow, 12.8 days with an inch of rain or more, and about 109 nights at or below freezing. Those are airport figures, not a reading from your street. They still describe the work a Cranston gutter does: a dozen hard rains a year, and enough freezing nights that wet leaves left in the trough in November can turn into ice by January.

The Edgewood Yacht Club, a historic landmark, sits on the Providence River in Cranston, and the city has its share of older streets. If your house is on one of them, ask the city whether exterior work needs any sign-off before the work starts. We have not read Cranston's rules on that, so we will not guess, and the installer works to whatever the city tells you.

What do gutter guards cost for a Cranston house?

The rate is per foot of gutter, installed. Gutter Clean Pro over a sound gutter is $18 in 5-inch and $20 in 6-inch. A new gutter with T-Rex is $25 and $29, and with DoublePro it is $30 and $34. As an example only, 120 feet of 5-inch T-Rex comes to $3000 before downspouts and removal.

Your own total depends on the length of the eaves, the number of stories, how many downspouts the roof needs and whether old gutter comes down. We measure the roofline remotely, so the number arrives on the call instead of after a visit. You get the scope and the total in writing before anything is ordered.

Will gutter guards help keep a Cranston basement dry?

They help with one source of water, the roof. A clogged gutter overflows at the worst spot, often right above a basement window or a bulkhead, and the water soaks in beside the wall. A guarded gutter keeps the trough open, so the roof water reaches the downspouts and leaves at the discharge point instead.

That only works if the downspouts send the water far enough. On a low lot, the discharge matters as much as the guard, and we price downspout extensions by the foot as their own line. If groundwater or a rising river is the real problem, a guard will not fix it, and we will tell you so. The downspouts page explains what can change.

Can a two-family house get gutter guards?

Yes. A two-unit building is priced the same way as a single-family house: by the foot of gutter, with downspouts on their own line. Cranston has close to 3,900 housing units in two-unit buildings, so the question comes up often.

What changes is the conversation. If you own the building and rent the other floor, you decide. If the units are owned separately, both owners need to agree to one plan for the whole roof, since a guard on half a gutter run leaves the other half to clog. We are happy to talk with both owners on the same call.

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 Cranston

• Every town we cover in Providence County: Gutter guards in Providence County, RI
• Next door: gutter guards in Warwick, gutter guards in West Warwick