Gutter repair and installation in San Antonio

Thirty-two inches of rain, delivered badly

San Antonio only averages about 32 inches of rain a year, which sounds gentle until you notice how it arrives. Most of it comes in two bursts, the spring storms of April and May and the fall storms of September and October, and a single one of those can put two inches on a roof in an hour. A gutter system that looks fine in a July drizzle is a waterfall in a May thunderstorm. That's the first thing we check on any house: not whether the gutters leak, but whether they were ever big enough.

The second thing is what's under the house. North of Loop 410 and out into the Hill Country the ground is limestone with a skin of caliche on top, and water doesn't soak into it so much as run across it. A downspout that dumps at the foundation sends that water along the slab edge, undercuts the flower bed, and finds its way into the garage. Closer in, on the older streets, it pools instead. Either way the fix is the same and it's cheap: get the water four to six feet from the wall.

The third is that a lot of San Antonio houses have no gutters at all. Builders here skipped them for decades because it doesn't rain often, and a 1950s ranch in Jefferson, a 1970s house off Bandera Road or a 2005 two-story in Stone Oak may have a trench worn into the mulch under the roofline and mud splashed up the brick. First-time installation is a bigger part of our work than replacement, and we have a page for it.

What we do

Repairs — resealing corners and end caps, re-hanging sagging runs on hidden hangers, replacing crushed or disconnected downspouts, adding a second downspout to a long run, and replacing the fascia board that rotted behind a gutter that overflowed for years. Most jobs are $150–$600 and done in a morning. Gutter leak repair San Antonio homeowners call about after a storm is on the repair page, along with hail-dented sections and what to photograph for an adjuster.

Seamless installation and replacement — 5-inch or 6-inch .032 aluminum formed on site from a coil, 3x4 downspouts where the roof area needs them, old gutters hauled away. A single-story home with 150 feet of gutter is typically $1,400–$2,200. The installation page covers sizing; the pricing page has the tables.

Gutter guards — micro-mesh, screen and reverse-curve, with an honest opinion on which one survives live oak catkins and which one becomes a shelf. Compared tree by tree on the gutter guards page.

Gutter cleaning — the visit after the live oaks finish dropping in April, flat-priced by home size, with a ladder check thrown in. See gutter cleaning.

Where we work

Inside Loop 410 from Alamo Heights and Monte Vista to Jefferson and Woodlawn Lake; north through Castle Hills, Shavano Park, Hollywood Park and Stone Oak; northwest to Leon Valley and Helotes; northeast to Windcrest, Converse, Universal City, Schertz and Cibolo; and out IH-10 to Boerne and up IH-35 to New Braunfels. If your number starts with 210 or 726, you're almost certainly in range. Alamo Heights and Boerne have their own pages because we're there most weeks: Alamo Heights and Boerne.

Why the calls come in May and October

Hail. April and May bring the storms that dent gutters flat, and the same storm usually damages the roof, so the gutters end up as a line on the roofing claim. If that's you, tell us when you call; storm work goes to the front of the schedule and we photograph everything before we touch it. The October calls are simpler: the fall storms arrive, the gutters that were "fine" all summer overflow onto the patio, and someone finally looks up. Why gutters overflow in San Antonio rain explains what they're seeing, and the fall storm checklist is the ten-minute walk-around that keeps you off the emergency list.