Winterizing Gutters in Pittsburgh: The Late-October List
The first hard freeze in Pittsburgh usually lands in the first half of December, sometimes late November. Everything on this list needs to be done before it, and a couple of the items need to be done in the right order. This is the action list — what to do, when, and what it costs if you hire it out. How the ice actually does its damage is a separate post for later in the season.
Now, while it's still warm
Three things that depend on temperature, so they go first.
1. Reseal any leaking corner now, while it's warm
Polyurethane gutter sealant needs a dry joint and a temperature above about 40°F to cure properly. Late October still gives you that on a sunny afternoon; late November often doesn't. A corner that drips now becomes a corner with a foot-long icicle hanging off it in January, and the icicle's weight works the joint open a little more every day. $150–$250 to reseal, and it holds for years when it's done in the right conditions.
2. Check the hangers
Walk the house and look for any gap between the top of the gutter and the fascia, or any run that's lower in the middle. Loose hangers in October are a gutter that comes down under ice in February. A re-hang on hidden screw hangers is $150–$300 per run and it's the single best money on this list for a house with original spike hangers.
3. Look at the attic while you're thinking about it
The cheapest ice-dam prevention is a cold roof. If you can see daylight around the attic hatch, or there's no insulation on the attic floor between the joists, or the bathroom fan vents into the attic instead of outside, you'll have ice dams no matter what the gutters do. Sealing and insulating is a contractor job or a weekend job depending on the house, and the utilities usually have rebates. It's worth a look before spending on cables.
The second half of November
Everything else waits for the leaves to finish, then happens in one week.
4. Book the cleaning for the right week
Not before the leaves are down. The maples are dropping and the oaks haven't started. A gutter cleaned in late October is full again by mid-November. Book it for the second half of November, or the first week of December if you're under pin oaks, and make sure whoever does it flushes every downspout from the top. A gutter that goes into the freeze full of wet leaves is the one that gets damaged; nothing else on this list matters as much. The fall leaf post has the timing by tree, and gutter cleaning runs $120–$300 by house size.
5. Get the downspouts ready to freeze
Every downspout will have ice in it at some point. Make sure the elbows are screwed, not just pushed together; a pushed-together elbow pops apart when the water inside freezes and expands. Where a downspout goes into a buried drain, disconnect it for the winter and run it to a surface extension — the underground pipe will freeze at the inlet and back the downspout up. Reconnect in April. Downspouts and your foundation covers the drains.
6. Extensions: keep them, but point them right
Water still needs to get away from the foundation in winter; a freeze-thaw week in January puts a lot of meltwater against the wall. Keep the extensions on. Point them away from the sidewalk, the driveway and the neighbor's steps, because whatever they discharge onto will be a sheet of ice. If an extension can only go onto the walk, shorten it and use a splash block on the lawn side instead.
7. Disconnect the rain barrel
Drain it, disconnect the diverter, and put the downspout back to normal before the first freeze. A full rain barrel that freezes splits, and a diverter that freezes backs the downspout up into the gutter. Store the barrel upside down.
8. Decide on heat cables
If you had ice dams or a frozen, split downspout last winter, this is the week to price a cable for that eave. They need to go on after the November cleaning and before the freeze, and the people who install them are booked by Thanksgiving. Whether it's the right answer for your house, and what it costs, is in gutter heat cables in Pittsburgh. Short version: right for a north-facing eave or a box gutter on a house with a decent attic; wrong for a house that needs attic insulation.
The two things not to do
Don't put a screen or a solid hood on the gutters now, in November, without cleaning first — you'll be locking a season of leaves under the guard for the winter. And don't try to chip ice out of a gutter in January with a hammer or a shovel; the gutter loses that fight every time. If the gutter fills with ice despite all of this, wait for it to thaw and then look at the damage, which is what the gutter repair page and the March schedule are for.
The order
Reseal and re-hang now. Cleaning and cables in the second half of November. Downspout disconnects and rain barrel the same week. Attic whenever you can. Done in that order, the gutters go into December empty, tight and pitched, and most of what winter can do to them, it won't.
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