Gutters and Roof Strap Applications

Alo Seamless Gutters has a variety of ways to solve your rain control needs. Most everyone knows what gutters are, and a good majority know that they are needed to protect your biggest investment – your home – from water intrusion and foundation erosion. Not everyone knows about how gutters are hung from their homes however. A straightforward, flat fascia that is present usually calls for the installation using a high-strength bar hanger – we use Hangfast bar hangers that are rated for 297 pounds test (see the application under the gallery – Our Products). However, not all homes have nice flat fascias on which to install gutters. Lots of homes these days have Hicks Vents (see our earlier blog about cutting corners), angled (or “canted”) fascias, and older homes from the 1940’s and earlier typically have a crown molding detail around the roof edges or built-in wooden gutters. It is these older homes we will address today. We recently completed a job in Bedford MA that had old wooden gutters on the home. When a previous homeowner had the roof re-done, they opted to have the new roof go right over the existing built-in wooden gutters. We do see more and more of this as homeowners struggle with costs associated with any type of re-roofing, and this is one way to keep costs down in any major re-roof project of this type of home. Now the new homeowner wants functioning gutters on the home, but what can be done with the old wooden gutters now essentially an immovable part of the structure? We have an answer, and it’s called roof straps. Now that sounds like something ugly and intrusive – straps sticking out every couple feet or so, and up over the roof edge and nailed over the top of the shingles. Indeed, a lot of our competitors do it this way, and most consumers are turned off by any mention of roof straps. But we at Alo Seamless Gutters have come up with a way to hide the roof straps so that most applications that they are used in cannot even be seen. There are a couple of pictures here that show just what we mean – we actually took the extra time to hide all the straps under the existing shingles so that they are not noticeable at all. We can also paint the straps to closely match the roof shingle color for those cases where hiding them under shingles is not possible – such as on rubber roofs, or even where the shingles don’t lend themselves to be gently manipulated. Roof straps are also extensively used in cases of wide crown moldings on the fascias when the homeowner doesn’t want any original structure removal or modification of the crown molding, yet wants a protective and functioning gutter system. No matter how we have to attach the new gutters, all of our work carries our 20 year guarantee on materials and 10 years on labor. We have yet to be called back on any job because the gutters didn’t function properly or came down under heavy ice and snow loads – something we cannot say about our competitors’ products. In short, if you want it done properly and professionally the first time, then give us a call. All of our estimates are free, and we can be very creative in solving your rain control needs with minimal alteration of existing aesthetics.