Gutter guards in Warwick, RI

Keep the gutter or replace it: the first Warwick question

Every Warwick quote starts with the same question: is the gutter on your house worth keeping? A gutter that holds its pitch toward the downspouts, stays tight at the corners and has no rust lines down the face can take a guard for many more years. For that house the answer is Gutter Clean Pro, an Alu-Rex guard made to go over an existing gutter. It costs $18 a foot on a 5-inch gutter and $20 on a 6-inch gutter, installed.

When the gutter fails that check, we stop talking about guards on their own. Pulling a guard off a failing gutter in three years costs more than doing the job once. The replacement we price is a new seamless gutter with T-Rex, where the guard is also the hanger: one continuous aluminum rail fastened along the whole length, with nothing driven through the gutter every couple of feet. T-Rex is $25 a foot in 5-inch and $29 a foot in 6-inch, gutter included.

For a roof that collects fine debris, DoublePro adds a second perforated layer beneath the first. Seed pods, needles and shingle grit stay on top instead of washing into the trough. DoublePro carries a lifetime clog-free warranty, pine needles included. It is $30 a foot in 5-inch and $34 in 6-inch.

Downspouts are measured on their own, at $14 a foot for standard and $16 for oversize, and removing old gutter adds $1 a foot when a replacement is needed. Nothing is folded into a bundle you cannot see. Every rate is on the pricing page.

A Bay city of mid-century houses, and the week the Pawtuxet rose

Warwick's housing is mostly detached single-family: about 69% of its 37,516 housing units, according to Census estimates. The median home was built in 1961. The largest single band is older still, 8,064 units from 1939 or earlier, and behind it sit the postwar decades: 7,209 units from the 1950s, 5,561 from the 1970s and 5,129 from the 1960s. A house from those years may or may not still carry its first gutter, which is why we ask about the gutter's condition before we price anything.

The city runs from Cranston on the north to East Greenwich on the south, with West Warwick on its western side. Its villages include Apponaug, Conimicut, Cowesett, Oakland Beach, Potowomut and Warwick Neck, and Pawtuxet Village, which Warwick shares with Cranston. The rate per foot is the same in all of them.

Water defines the eastern side. Warwick's whole eastern edge is waterfront, beginning with the Providence River at the Cranston line. At Conimicut Point the river ends and Narragansett Bay begins, and water covers 14.1 square miles, about 28% of the city's area. If your house faces the water, say so on the call, so the plan accounts for how exposed that eave is.

Rain is the other half. Over March 29 to 31, 2010, 6 to 10 inches fell across Rhode Island and the month passed 16 inches. When the Pawtuxet River crested on March 31, the Warwick Mall sat under 2 feet of water, a section of I-95 closed, and many homes and businesses flooded. A gutter cannot hold back a river. It can make sure the roof does not add its own water at the foundation on the same night.

Rhode Island's main airport, T.F. Green International, is in Warwick, and its NOAA station keeps the long-record normals for the area. For 1991-2020 they 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. These are the airport's numbers, and the Bay shore can differ. A dozen inch-plus rains a year is the test a guard has to pass, and over a hundred freezing nights is why a clogged gutter in Warwick turns into an ice problem.

How do I know if my Warwick gutters are sound enough for a guard?

Three checks from the ground cover most of it. Watch during a heavy rain: water should leave through the downspouts, not over the front edge. Look along the run from one end: it should be straight, with no dips where water sits. Look at the corners and end caps: they should be dry and free of rust or white streaks.

If you are not sure, describe what you see on the call or send a photo. We would rather tell you the gutter needs replacing now than sell a guard that comes off with it in a few years. The question page on whether you need new gutters for guards goes into more detail.

What does a gutter guard cost on a Warwick house?

The price follows the footage, not the style of the house. Gutter Clean Pro over existing gutter is $18 a foot in 5-inch. As an example only, 140 feet of it comes to $2520. If the gutter has to be replaced, the same run with T-Rex would be $3500, and with DoublePro $4200, before downspouts.

A one-story house has short ladders and quick runs, and a two-story colonial has more footage and longer downspouts. We measure the roofline remotely and give you the number on the call, then put the scope and total in writing before anything is ordered.

Do gutter guards cause ice dams?

Ice dams start on the roof, when heat escaping through the attic melts snow that refreezes at the cold eave. A guard does not create that heat, and a gutter that drains freely gives meltwater somewhere to go. A gutter packed with frozen leaves does the opposite.

If your house dams every winter, the fix is in the attic: insulation and ventilation. A guard will not cure it, and we will say so. The ice dam question page walks through it.

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 Warwick

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