FINALLY! A solution to roof valleys!

Every year I do estimates for Eavestrough and gutter protection. At every home I go to that has a roof valley (see picture below for a picture of a roof valley), I point out the likely and inherent problems that this area will cause.

The majority of home owners do not realise how much water is concentrated in this roof valley by the end of its run when it gets to the eavestrough! It can be enormous! Now think of all that water hitting about a 4"-6" area of your eavestrough!

Another inherent problem with valleys, is that they are debris collectors. Wind movement comes across the roof from different angles and literally traps the debris in the V area of the valley. Like in the picture below.

Now place gutter protection in the eavestrough and you compound the problem. Most people that sell gutter protection promise the stars and how theirs is the best and you will have 0 maintenance, etc...
EVERY gutter protection restricts the opening of the mouth of the eavestrough. So when you place gutter protection in the valley, now you are giving less room for the water to go through and over it will come! That's why I am a fan of a roof valley splash guard and install them on every house I do eavestrough on. However, splash guards have their own problems.

If you look at the picture above, you will notice that the benefit of the splash guard is that any water that wants to over shoot the eavestrough will hit the back of the splash guard and drop into the gutter. HOWEVER.....one BIG problem is that now the debris gets trapped behind the splash guard. So it solves a problem and creates one at the same time! It looked like there was no good solution. Until.....

Last year I was introduced by a friend to the Barnett's Valley Controller. He is in the gutter business in the USA and said he had been using them for several years and they work like a charm! I bought some and did a few installs, one for a neighbour just a few doors away from me. I have been monitoring it for a year and it is unbelievable how flawlessly they work! Here is a picture of the Valley Controller:

Here are the details about Barnett’s Valley Controller:

• It incorporates a patented cheese-grater style top and louvred sidewall design. Water flows through the open slots into the gutter, and debris washes over the top of the surface and falls to the ground.
• It’s made of Kostrate®, the same material as plastic water bottles.
• The plastic is pliable, will stand up to sub-zero temperatures, and has a memory so that it can take and hold a shape.
• It will fit on any asphalt shingle roof with or without a metal valley, and secures under the second course of shingles.
• It’s guaranteed for 12-years, and can be painted with any acrylic paint to match your roof and gutters.

Here is a picture of what it looks like installed!

My neighbour who is surrounded by trees has these on her house loves them! The debris works its way over the edge, the water goes through and into the eavestrough where it's supposed to! Problem solved! This does not guarantee that you wont have to clean the valley out at somepoint, but it will prevent all the water from coming over the edge.

To conclude this article, here is a youtube video from Barnett's Valley Controllers.

For all your eavestrough needs contact The Eavestrough Company at www.theeavestroughcompany.com or phone us at 905-966-2564.

Why Drip Edge on your roof is ESSENTIAL!

Drip edge is a metal flashing that  Roofers  install under the first row of shingles. It serves many vital purposes. Here are five.

1. It provides support to the shingles so that it does not curl down over the years and cause the shingles to crack and break.

2. It prevents potential water to run down behind the Eavestrough (between the fascia board and back of the eavestrough.

3.  It creates overlapping of the wooden fascia that can be prone to rot due to water penetration.

4. It covers small gaps between the roof sheathing and fascia which will prevent animals from seeing an opening which they will chew at until they are into your attic.

5.  It is also perfect for sealing the start of the ice and water shield. Ice and water shield is a water proof membrane that roofing companies install before shingling and helps prevent water leakage in the event of an ice dam.

It is important to state at the beginning that drip edge is a part of your roof and not your eavestrough. However, from an eavestrough standpoint drip edge is essential to provide you with a roof that will drain water off the roof and into the eavestrough properly. MANY roofers take the short cut of not installing drip edge. Most homes I work on DO NOT have it.  Roofers that take the short cut of not using drip edge will often leave the shingles extra long (2-4 inches) so that they will sag down into the eavestrough. This will eventually weaken the shingles and hinder proper installation of any new eavestroughs you may be considering after the roof is done. It also severely restricts the top eavestrough opening. See the pictures below of a house I worked on last year that only had an opening of about 1 1/2 inches.

The above roof had no drip edge on it and the shingle over hang was about 3 1/2 inches! Look at the picture below to see how much room there was to try and get your hand in to clean out debris or do repairs!

Prior to a roof installation, drip edge is very simple and inexpensive to install. Drip edge costs only about 65 cents per foot, is installed quickly and comes in various colours. It is a tragedy that it is overlooked most of the time.

As seen in the picture below there is no drip edge which causes the shingles to curl down allowing water to drip behind the eavestrough. (the black mesh is a top quality gutter protection installed in the eavestrough)

Notice how the shingles are rounded and curled. This person had a moderate amount of water dripping between the back of the eaves and fascia. The shingles were so brittle that it was not possible to lift them up and install drip edge because they risked cracking and breaking the shingles. Below is another photo.

This picture below shows an obvious gap between the roof deck and the top of the fascia. The picture shows that the current roof sheathing is too short and so is the fascia! It is a disaster waiting to happen!

With a gap like you see above, in the Fall, squirrels and other animals seek warmth. Since most house heat escapes out of the ceiling of your house, a gap like this will rapidly exhaust heat and attract the animals. If an animal gets in there, it will enter straight into the attic or chew its way in like the picture below on a house I worked on in Hamilton last year. Look closely and you will see a round hole in the fascia. A squirrel had made its home in the attic!

 Normal drip edge covers a gap of only about 2 inches. However, for a gap like this, drip edge can be custom made from eavestrough coil so that it extends about 4 to 6 inches up under the shingles and down 2 inches maximum down over the fascia. Any more than 2 inches can interfere with eavestrough and leafgaurd installation. One final tip is that the shingles should extend about 3/4 of inch past the drip edge to ensure proper water flow directly into the eavestrough. It is much easier to have drip edge installed in conjuntion with a new roof than installing it afterwards.

This final picture shows a potential problem with the shingles not hanging 3/4 inch past the drip edge. The surface tension of the water will cause the water to travel past the end of the shingle and then travel backwards toward the fascia / eavestrough. If the distance is not great enough, the water may hit the fascia in heavy rains and cause leaking behind the eavestrough and may require additional flashing work to make sure the water goes where it is supposed to.

 There you have it! The importance of roofing drip edge! Demand it if you are getting a new roof because EVERY roof needs it! For all your eavestrough needs, contact The Eavestrough Company at www.theeavestroughcompany.com or phone us at 905-966-2564.

What gauge aluminum should you use?

When it comes to installing eavestrough, I am often asked about what gauge we use. There are 3 thicknesses of aluminium that are used for eavestrough:

1. .02395 gauge is most commonly used as it has the widest colour selection and can hold up to most residential applications. It is available in about 35 different colours from our supplier (Gentek, Boncor, or Kaycan)

2. .027 gauge is slightly thicker than the .023 and is available only by a few suppliers in very few colours.

3. 0.32 of an inch which is the thickest aluminium that our machines can form. We provide this only for 6 inch eavestrough and is not necessary for 5" eavestrough.

We can check the thickness of aluminium using a digital calliper as shown below:

The most common gauge I use is the .02395 gauge for 5" eavestrough. It is plenty thick enough to handle heave snow loads. I use only the thicker gauges upon request. In reality, with any one of these thicknesses, your eavestroughs will only be as strong as the distance of spacing between your brackets. Once I had to replace eavestroughs for a customer that were not too old. However, they were badly dented and sagging. When I got up to take a look, their brackets were spaced about 3-4 feet apart. That is just too far! Brackets should be no further than 18" apart.  At customers requests, I have spaced them 12" to 16" apart. This does increase the cost a nominal amount but these customers wanted it for peace of mind.

See a quality hanger with a large deep screw that will not come loose from the wood fascia.

An excellent to substantially increase the strength of any gauge eavestrough is to add a leaf gaurd/bracket system like the AluRex T-Rex. It comes in 7 1/2 foot long pieces and snaps into the eavestrough before the eavestroughs are secured on the home.

It should be noted that although AluRex is the best way to strengthen your eavestroughs, it has its deficiencies as a gutter protection. I have found AluRex has great difficulty with coniferous trees such as pine and spruce needles.  However, it is a great product with all deciduous trees (even those little helicopter seeds are no problem). Please read my blog post on Eavestrough protection in regards to roof valley issues.

There you have it. The answer to the question is that any of the above gauges will suit you fine. It is mostly dependent on bracket use. Get a good bracket and space them close together and your eavestroughs will last years. Install AluRex and they will be near bullet proof!

As a cautionary note, make sure you hire a reputable company that uses aluminum from one of the main suppliers. There is a material available coming out of Toronto that is selling aluminum in a .15 gauge material that is as thin as paper! I saw it and got a sample. It is razor thin! Sure I can buy it cheaper, but at what cost? The material is terrible! The downpipes are also razor thin!

 If you live in the Burlington/Oakville, Mississauga, or Greater Hamilton area and would like a quote for a professionally installed and quality Eavestrough System, please call The Eavestrough Company office at 905-966-2564 or visit our website at www.theeavestroughcompany.com

The plain truth about Gutter Protection!

I've been a home owner for 26 years. I bought my first home in 1985. Since that time, home owners have attempted to try and keep debris out of their eavestroughs. Back in those days, there simply did not seem to be a product that worked. There was a plastic mesh with large diamond shaped holes. There was a metal wire mesh with large diamond shaped holes. Some people simply tried to wire on a fine wire fencing type mesh. Nothing worked.

The old and still abundantly available Amerimax leaf guards had openings far too  large and were hard to secure properly. These mesh leaf guards are most likely why most homeowners feel that leaf guards do not work well. They  were nearly 100% failure prone! They required cleaning underneath with too much debris getting into the gutter. This resulted in extra work or charges from gutter cleaning companies. See the picture below of the Americmax mesh as compared to a more modern leaf guard design. See the small debris and seeds went right through Amerimax!

As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention" and there are some very good products on the market that work very well. However, as a home owner, you need to be careful because there are some products out there that work well but the companies charge an absolute fortune for them (about $25-$30 per foot)! A good quality gutter protection should cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of about $5.00 to $12.00 per lineal ft. and that includes gutter cleaning and installation of the product. It's really a matter of good, better, best. Lets look at a product that work well that are on the lower cost of the price list: Alu-Rex. Alu-Rex is the metal plate with tiny holes in it as shown above next to the old style mesh. Below is another picture of AluRex:

This product installed, cost around $5-7 per foot but the cost can be more based on roof type and pitch, how high the job required is, and how much shingle over hang there is. If you have too much shingle over hang, forget about installing AluRex.

Alu-Rex works great! I have had few issues with Alu-Rex except for one house that had very intense spruce needle debris. We were able to fix this by creating some clean-outs over the downpipes and the customer must have the debris blown off the gutters and roof valleys once per year.


Another problematic area with any Gutter Protection are roof valleys. Debris collects on the roof in these areas. In fact, it gets trapped in these areas. Then a huge rain washes it out and straight down toward the eavestrough. It lands on the Gutter protection and just sticks there. However, it should be noted that this is a problem with all roof valleys and gutter protection. See below a roof valley filled with debris:

A far superior gutter protection is an 18 gauge stainless steel micro mesh that has been powder coated so that it does not rust. It is then wrapped with a fine mesh to assure that nothing goes through but water. It is called Diamond Back Gutter Covers. The installed price of this product is around $12 per foot. See the pictures below:

It is one of the best products on market and far superior to others. You get what you pay for. In my opinion, it is worth paying the extra few dollars for a product like Diamond Back Gutters. it is a real life time products that will not need cleaning.


If you live in the Greater Hamilton or Burlington/Oakville area and would like a quote for a professionally installed Gutter Protection System then please call The Eavestrough Company at 905-966-2564 or visit our website at http://www.theeavestroughcompany.com

Why an upper Downpipe should NEVER be routed onto a lower roof!

When you look around at two story homes, it is very common to see the downpipes from the upper second story roof routed directly on to the roof on the first story. Most home owners never think about it, and it also allows an eavestrough company to save money on downpipe or give the customer a cheaper estimate to a customer.

However, routing the downpipes in this way is simply WRONG!!! Look at the picture below:

Do you notice anything? This roof is not old and the water has not been running down this area for too many years. Can you see the excessive staining and the dampness from the huge volume of water that continually runs down this one area? This roof is a 30 year roof! I guarantee you that the roof directly in front of this downpipe will last less than 15 years. It may not even last 10 years! Why? Water is powerful and it will begin to damage and curl these shingles. Want proof? Here you go! Look at the shingles directly in front of this downpipe! They are ruined!

And that is what will happen to your shingles if your downpipes are routed this way. When my company, Superior Exterior does work on your home, we will never route your downpipes in this fashion. Instead, we extend the downpipe across the lower roof and route it directly into the lower trough as seen in the picture below from a home that we did in Burlington.

Routing the dowpipe in this way will assure that the water from the upper trough goes where it is supposed to go! Directly into the lower eavestrough. You can assure that your job will be done right if you contact The Eavestrough Company at 905-966-2564 or you can visit our website at www.theeavestroughcompany.com

What's in an Estimate?

I do hundreds of estimates every single year. There are some people who look for numerous estimates. Then there are others who have met me and receive the quote and accept it and do not look else where. People are different. It is my belief that those who accept my job as the first and only quote accept it because they trust me and believe I will offer the quality service I promise to deliver. The other group, who is looking around for the best price also want a quality job but are looking for who can get the job done the cheapest. This is good! However, you must remember that not all estimates are the same so questions must be asked.

I lost securing a job recently where I quoted on Eavestrough, Fascia, Soffit, capping a few hundred feet of trim, and gutter protection. I itemized it all for the customer. The customer has a car port and decided not to do that as it would add hundreds to the cost. I talked with the customer who told me that she decided to go with the other company because they matched my price and would do the car port as well (which had around 400 ft of soffit. I was absolutely dumb founded as I priced the 400 ft of Soffit on the house at $4.00 per ft., which is an excellent price. I tried to explain to the customer that there was no way another company would install her carport soffit for $2.00 per ft! No matter! The customer was looking at the bottom line and was sold on the other company. I drove by that house a while later and was doing an estimate near by. I noticed that the other company had not done what I had quoted on at all! The hundreds of feet of wood capping: NOT DONE. Gutter Protection: NOT DONE. The customer also had fewer downpipes and all small square pipes. All corners were pre-made corners and not mitered. But worst of all, the fascia on the house was extremely wide and all had to be made on site. I noticed that the other company capped the fascia only up to underneath the eavestrough and did not cap all the way up to the roof line leaving the top few inches of fascia board exposed. This was not visible from the ground. It was a job poorly done!

I also did a job in Binbrook recently where a man, at first, contemplated not going with my company because I was over $1000 higher than XYZ company but I was $200 cheaper than ABC company. I was dumb founded as this seemed to be quite an enormous difference! The job was extremely large but $1000 is quite a disparity. I did the math and I got back to Mr. Customer who really wanted to go with my company but could not wrap his head around $1000 more. What I discovered was that if XYZ company quoted on the exact same thing as I quoted on, they were installing his eavestrough for around $3.25 per ft. and installing Alu-Rex Gutter Protection for around $2.00 per ft. These prices barely cover materials and labour! They may not even cover materials and labour! I relayed this to Mr. Customer who had XYZ company come back out to his home. Mr Customer discovered that XYZ company had not quoted him on the eavestrough, soffit, fascia, and capping on his new detached 2 car garage! Now XYZ was $500 more than I was!

The confusion with Mr. Customer came because XYZ company and ABC company looked around his house and then wrote down on an invoice: "Eaves, Gutter Protection, Capping" and then their price plus the HST. There was no mention of the footage involved or how much material was going to be used. There also was no mention of the gauge of material that would be used! It was just a price. My estimates always itemize EVERYTHING. I explain to customers exactly how much eavestroughing they have, how much down pipe will be used, how many elbows will be required, the lineal feet of fascia and soffit, the exact lineal feet of gutter protection, how many squares of siding, how many windows and doors and the cost for capping them, etc.....  I then spend time with the customer explaining that we will be using only large square piping or in some cases the oversize 3x4 piping. I may point out problematic areas that require a 6" eavestrough. I point out problematic roof valley's that require us to make a customized splash guard. Also, of great importance to the homeowner is to attempt to help them with the colours they are choosing.

My belief is that people need to know EXACTLY what they are getting when they hire me to do the job. On a personal level, I dislike blanket quotes that merely give me a price with no specifics as to what the job will entail.

On numerous occasions, I have lost jobs, only to find out later when driving by that house that what I quoted them on is not what was done in the end! One job I recently quoted on had many second story down pipes that routed directly onto lower roofs. I ALWAYS route upper level downpipes directly into lower troughs to avoid excessive water channelling in one place, thus damaging the roof over time. The one company that beat me on price quoted on the job exactly as it was and thus had 40 feet of downpipe less than I did. Again, the homeowner was none the wiser because that company gave them a blanket price. Once the homeowner realized this, it was a different story!

I encourage estimates, however, just make sure that when you are comparing one companies quote against another, you may be comparing an apple with a banana! It may not be the same at all! If there are large disparities in the price, ask questions. You may find out like Mr. Customer, that XYZ company is cheaper for a reason!

When you ask me to do your estimate, I always quote on what it will take to get the job done properly! I use only .023 or .027 gauge aluminum, only large square pipes, the slope will be perfect, and all corners will be mitred. 

If you want a job done right. Contact The Eavestrough  Companyat 905-966-2564 or visit our website at www.theeavestroughcompany.com

The Power of Nature!

I do hundreds of estimates per year and every so often I run across some things that are so unique. Recently I was at a home in Dundas doing an estimate. I had to go onto the neighbors brand new driveway which was installed last year. While on the driveway, I noticed that daffodils were popping through everywhere! They were coming up right through 2 inches of asphalt! It was so unbelievable that I had to take pictures. Here they are! Enjoy the power of nature! Oh.....and my recommendation, get every freaking plant out from underneath a driveway or walk way before you pave! LOL