Gutter repair and installation in Mt. Lebanon, PA

Gutters in Mt. Lebanon

Mt. Lebanon was built in a hurry between the wars, after the streetcar tunnel opened, and the houses show it: block after block of brick Tudors, Dutch colonials and center-hall colonials in Virginia Manor, Mission Hills, Beverly Heights, Hoodridge and the streets around Washington Road. Most were roofed in slate, and the better ones were built with box gutters behind a wooden cornice and copper or galvanized downspouts. Ninety years on, the slate is often still good and the gutter lining isn't.

The later streets — Sunset Hills, the Cedar Boulevard side, the 1950s ranches toward Castle Shannon — have hung gutters, and there the work is more ordinary: aluminum that has reached the end of its life, spike hangers backed out, downspouts that were tied into clay drains nobody has seen the end of in decades.

And everywhere in Mt. Lebanon there are trees. The pin oaks and maples that make the streets are the same ones that fill the gutters in November and drop seeds into them in June.

What we do here

• Box gutter repair — relining in EPDM or copper, rotted cornice framing rebuilt, outlets and downspout connections replaced. This is most of our Mt. Lebanon work.
• Gutter repair — corners, sagging runs, ice damage on the hung-gutter homes and on rear additions.
• Seamless installation — gutter installation Mt Lebanon homeowners ask for on the 1950s–60s houses is a straightforward aluminum replacement, usually one day.
• Gutter guards — micro-mesh under the maples, screens under the oaks; not on box gutters unless the lining has been done first.
• Gutter cleaning — late June and late November, with a look at the cornice paint while we're up there.

The cornice problem

The call we get most from Mt. Lebanon goes something like: "The paint on the trim under the roof edge keeps peeling, and there's a stain on the bedroom ceiling near the outside wall." That's a box gutter lining that has failed, usually at a seam or the outlet, and the water is running into the cornice and down inside the wall. Repainting the cornice lasts a season. Relining the gutter fixes it. We open a section during the inspection, show you what the wood looks like, and price the relining per foot with the framing repair as a separate line.

Downspouts and the dye test

Most of Mt. Lebanon's older downspouts were originally piped into the sanitary sewer, and the municipality — like most in Allegheny County — now requires stormwater to be disconnected from it. If you're selling, the dye test will find a connected downspout. If a downspout on your house disappears into the ground and you don't know where it goes, we'll run water through it and tell you whether it's draining to daylight, into a storm line, or into the foundation. Redirecting a downspout to the surface with a six-foot extension is a small job; it's also the fix for a surprising number of damp basements on Mt. Lebanon's sloped lots.

Pricing in Mt. Lebanon

Same list as everywhere else. Repairs $150–$600; seamless aluminum $9–$15 per foot; box gutter relining $35–$60 per foot in EPDM with framing repair extra; cleaning $120–$300 by house size. The pricing page has the full tables. There's no travel charge; we're in Mt. Lebanon most weeks.

Nearby

We also cover Dormont, Castle Shannon, Scott Township, Upper St. Clair and Bethel Park from the same crew. Zip codes 15228, 15216 and 15234.