How Far Should Rain Gutter Attachments Be Placed

Gutters should be placed below the extended roof line so that snow and ice can slide clear.

How far should rain gutter attachments be placed.

Space the guttering away from the soffits so that it is not covered by the eaves of the roof or else the rain will be diverted elsewhere instead of where it belongs. The shingles should extend past the top flange of the drip edge. If you live in a warm place with sporadic rain you can hang gutter hangers close to the middle of the gutter with a spacing of no more than 36 inches or three feet apart from the center. A lot of homeowners wonder how far their extensions should go.

Use longer extensions to make sure you re getting all that water away from your home. If you are installing the downspout on a two story house then you need to add clamps every 5 8 feet. Factors like location accessibility and landscaping come into play so it s not always a clear cut answer. It s not uncommon for homeowners to hang the gutters so that the front edge is slumping forward too much.

If wind blown rain or a very low slope roof conspire to force water back under the shingle eaves edge so it courses down the face of the drip edge it should be able to drip off the bottom kicker. The next factor to take into account is the pitch of your roof because the pitch will cause water to flow in a certain direction. For rainy climates where gutters will handle a larger amount of water for long periods they should have a maximum distance of 18 inches apart between them. Steeper pitches require less clearance.

Required clearance of gutter below extended roof line roof pitch clearance below extended roof line 0 in 12 2 in 12 1. That said gutters need to be completely level from front to back or water could spill over either edge. The water should roll off these shingles and drop straight down into the gutter. In order to place the downspout at each corner you will need to get up on a ladder and run the gutters into the downspout.

The typical recommendation is one downspout for every 20 to 30 feet of gutters. To be safe aim for a 4 foot minimum extension away from a downspout. For gutter runs longer than 40 feet it s best to pitch the gutter down from the middle to a downspout at each end. To ensure that gutters drain properly make certain they slope inch for every 10 feet toward a downspout.

Or you can slope the gutters down from each end toward a single downspout placed in the middle of the run.