Gutter guards in Stamford, CT

Keep the gutters you have, or start over: the three options for a Stamford house

Most calls from Stamford start with the same question: can a guard go on the gutters already up there? Often it can. Gutter Clean Pro is our retrofit. It clips over an existing gutter that still hangs level, drains to its outlets and holds at the seams. It is $18 a foot on 5-inch gutters and $20 on 6-inch, installed. The rate is low because you keep the gutter and only the guard is new.

The catch is the word sound. A gutter from the 1960s may have been patched with sealant a dozen times, pulled half off the fascia by ice, or pitched the wrong way after a re-roof. Putting a cover on that hides the problem for a season. When we see it on the call, we will tell you and price new gutters instead. You do not pay for a guard on a gutter that is about to fail.

When the gutter does need replacing, the guard is built into the new run. T-Rex is a hanger and guard in one piece. It runs the full length of the gutter, so the trough is supported everywhere instead of at a spike every two feet. It costs $25 a foot for 5-inch and $29 for 6-inch. DoublePro adds a second perforated aluminum layer under the first. That layer stops pine needles, seed pods and shingle grit, which a single screen lets through. DoublePro starts at $30 a foot, and DoublePro carries a lifetime clog-free warranty, pine needles included.

Which one suits your roof comes down to two questions: what state your gutters are in, and what lands on the roof. Mostly maple and oak leaves on sound gutters points to Gutter Clean Pro. Needles or helicopter seeds point to DoublePro. Tired gutters under ordinary leaf fall point to T-Rex. Downspouts are their own line at $14 to $16 a foot, and removing old gutter is $1 a foot when it is needed. All of it is on the price list.

What Stamford's houses, rivers and weather mean for your gutters

Census estimates count 58,655 housing units in Stamford. About 19,800 of them, roughly one in three, are detached houses, and more than 16,000 are in buildings with 50 or more units. The median building dates from 1973, but the 1950s and 1960s together added more than 16,000 units. If you own a house here, there is a good chance it is a postwar one. It has probably had a new roof since, and the gutters are often older than the shingles above them.

The city is also bigger than people think. At 52.09 square miles it is the largest city in Connecticut by area. It runs from the Long Island Sound shore up to the New York line at Pound Ridge, with Greenwich to the west, Darien to the east and New Canaan to the northeast. North Stamford is the largest part of that land and the least densely settled, so the houses there sit farther apart than they do near the water. A gutter job up there looks different from one on a tight street by the Sound, and we ask which you have.

Ida is the storm most Stamford owners remember. Patch reported almost nine inches of rain in the city on September 2, 2021. The Rippowam River broke its banks and flooded Washington Boulevard, the streets by the I-95 underpass and the Metro-North station went under, and the city logged 18 water rescues. Most guards cope fine with a drizzle. Trouble starts in a downpour like that one. A screen that slows water down sends it over the front edge, and a 5-inch gutter under a big roof valley simply runs out of room.

For an ordinary year, the nearest long-record NOAA station is Bridgeport's Sikorsky Memorial Airport, about 20 miles up the coast. Its 1991-2020 normals are 44.09 inches of precipitation, 33.6 inches of snow, 10.3 days with an inch or more of rain, and about 92 nights at or below freezing. Those are Bridgeport-area figures, not a Stamford measurement. They still describe the job a gutter here has to do: about ten real downpours a year and a winter of freezing and thawing.

If your house is in the Old Long Ridge Village Historic District, check with the Old Long Ridge Historic District Commission before any exterior work. That is the rural settlement at the city's northern edge, a local district established in 1984 with Early American, Federal and Italianate houses. We could not find the commission's rules online, so we will not guess what it reviews. Ask first, and we will plan the job around the answer.

How much do gutter guards cost for a Stamford house?

It depends on how many feet of gutter the house has and which system it needs, so we price by the foot. Over existing gutters, Gutter Clean Pro is $18 a foot for 5-inch and $20 for 6-inch. With new gutters, T-Rex is $25 and $29, and DoublePro is $30 and $34. Those rates include the gutter where there is one, the guard and the installation.

To get from the rate to a total, we measure the roofline remotely. We need to know how many stories the house has, where the downspouts go and what trees overhang it. A split-level with short runs on three sides is a different job from a long center-hall Colonial. You get the number on the call, and the written quote lists gutter, downspout and removal as separate lines.

Will gutter guards stop my gutters overflowing in a storm?

Sometimes, and it is worth knowing which case you are in. If the overflow happens because leaves have packed the trough, a guard fixes the cause. If it happens because the gutter is too small for the roof above it, or the downspout is choked, a guard does not change that. Then the fix is a 6-inch gutter, an extra downspout, or both.

The quickest way to tell is to watch the next heavy rain. Water pouring over one corner, below a valley, points to capacity. Water sheeting over the whole length points to a clog or a guard that sheds water. Tell us which you see on the call. The page on why gutters overflow walks through the same checks.

Are gutter guards worth it on a city lot with few trees?

Not always, and we will say so. If no tree overhangs the roof and the gutters stay clean on their own, a guard adds cost without much benefit. On many Stamford lots, though, a single street tree or a neighbor's maple puts enough leaves in the gutter to clog it every fall. On a lot like that, a guard is worth pricing.

The question page on whether guards are worth it sets out the trade-offs in more detail, and each system's written warranty is on the warranty page.

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 Stamford

• Every town we cover in Fairfield County: Gutter guards in Fairfield County, CT
• Next door: gutter guards in Darien, gutter guards in New Canaan