Gutter Replacement Cost: New Gutters by the Foot

Gutters are the cheapest part of a house’s water management system and the most expensive to get wrong. A complete replacement is usually a one-day job in the $1,000 to $3,000 range, while the foundation damage that follows years of overflow starts at five figures. Here is what the work actually costs and what separates a good install from a bad one.

What new gutters cost in 2026

Expect $6 to $14 per linear foot installed for seamless aluminum, the material on the large majority of American houses. That figure includes the gutter, hidden hangers, end caps, miters at corners, outlets, sealant, removal of the old gutter, and downspouts sized to the run.

For whole-house totals:

• Single-story ranch, 120 – 160 linear feet: $900 to $2,200 installed
• Two-story colonial, 150 – 200 linear feet: $1,100 to $2,800 installed
• Large or complex roofline, 220 – 300 linear feet: $1,800 to $4,500 installed

Two-story work carries a labor premium of roughly 15 to 30 percent over the same footage at single-story height, because of staging and ladder time rather than material. Steep or difficult-access rooflines push it further.

The national baseline is about $9 per linear foot installed, and your market may sit well above or below it. Check the gutter cost by state data before you decide whether a bid is fair.

Price per linear foot by material

Ranges below are installed, including hangers and standard fittings. Downspouts are typically priced separately at similar or slightly higher per-foot rates.

The gauge line matters more than most homeowners realize. Standard .027 aluminum is fine in most of the country, but in snow country a sliding ice sheet will deform it, and .032 resists that for about $2 per foot more. If you get ice dams, spend the money.

Copper and zinc are architectural choices, not performance upgrades in any ordinary sense. They look right on a historic or high-end house and they last for generations, but they require a crew that can solder joints properly, and that crew is not the same one quoting your aluminum job.

Sizing: 5-inch vs 6-inch, K-style vs half-round

Residential gutter comes in two profiles and two common widths, and the sizing decision is the one most likely to be made wrong.

K-style is the ogee profile on nearly every American house. It carries more water than a half-round of the same nominal width because the cross-section is closer to rectangular, and it is cheaper because the coil is cheaper and the machines are everywhere.

Half-round is the traditional profile, common on historic and higher-end homes and usually paired with copper or heavy aluminum. It self-cleans better because debris does not lodge in a corner, but it costs 30 to 60 percent more and generally needs a larger nominal size for the same capacity.

The 5-inch versus 6-inch decision is about how fast water arrives at the gutter, not just how much falls. A 6-inch K-style carries roughly 40 percent more water than 5-inch and typically pairs with 3x4 downspouts instead of 2x3.

Go to 6-inch when:

• Roof pitch is steep enough to shed water fast. Confirm yours with the Roof Pitch Calculator — anything above about 7:12 delivers water to the eave in a hurry
• More than about 1,000 square feet of roof drains to a single downspout
• A valley concentrates two roof planes into one short section of gutter
• Runs exceed 40 feet without an intermediate outlet
• The roof is metal, which sheds far faster than asphalt
• You are in a region that gets intense short-duration rain rather than steady drizzle

The upcharge is typically $1.50 to $3 per linear foot. Overflow at the eave is the single most common gutter complaint, and undersizing is the most common cause.

Seamless vs sectional

Seamless gutter is roll-formed on site from a coil of aluminum, so a 60-foot run is one continuous piece with no joints except at corners and downspout outlets. Sectional gutter comes in 10-foot sticks joined with connectors and sealant.

Every joint is a future leak. Sealant lasts five to twelve years, the joint opens, and water runs down the fascia behind the gutter, which is exactly where you cannot see it. That is the entire argument, and it is a strong one.

The cost difference is small: $1 to $3 per linear foot. Labor is the same. Any contractor with a roll-forming trailer will quote seamless by default, and if a bid specifies sectional aluminum, ask why. The legitimate reasons are a short patch matching existing material or a site the truck cannot reach.

Use the Gutter Calculator to get your total linear footage, downspout count, and hanger count before the estimator arrives. Bidders sometimes measure generously.

Downspouts and where the water has to go

Downspouts are not an accessory. They are the part of the system that decides whether the water leaves.

Count: one downspout per 30 to 40 linear feet of gutter run, minimum. Long runs need one at each end rather than one in the middle, and a gutter fed by a valley needs an outlet close to where the water lands.

Size: a 2x3 downspout drains roughly 600 square feet of roof; a 3x4 handles about 1,200 square feet. The rule behind those numbers is about one square inch of downspout cross-section per 100 square feet of roof area. In heavy-rain regions, tighten it.

Cost: $8 to $18 per linear foot installed for aluminum, including elbows and straps. Each downspout on a two-story wall is 20 to 25 feet of material once you count the offsets.

Then comes the part almost nobody prices: where the water goes after it hits the ground.

A downspout dumping at the foundation is worse than no gutter at all, because you have collected an entire roof plane’s runoff and concentrated it in one spot against the footing. Discharge needs to be at least 4 to 6 feet from the foundation, and further on clay soils or a lot that grades toward the house.

• Splash blocks and 4 – 6 ft extensions: $15 to $50 each, the minimum acceptable answer
• Buried solid PVC drain line to daylight: $12 to $30 per linear foot installed
• Pop-up emitters at the discharge end: $60 to $150 each
• Full perimeter drain where grading cannot be fixed: price it with the French Drain Calculator

Where roof runoff is allowed to go is not purely your choice. Many jurisdictions prohibit tying downspouts into a sanitary sewer, some require discharge onto your own lot rather than a neighbor’s, and stormwater or wetland overlays can restrict a buried line to daylight entirely. Your locally adopted code and any municipal stormwater ordinance govern, and a licensed contractor familiar with your jurisdiction should confirm the discharge method before anything is trenched.

Chronic foundation water shows up as efflorescence on basement walls, a wet corner after every storm, and eventually settlement cracks. Foundation repair starts around $5,000 and routinely runs past $25,000. Spending $600 on buried extensions is the cheapest structural insurance available to a homeowner.

Slope, hangers, and fascia rot

Gutters must pitch toward the outlet at about 1/4 inch per 10 feet. That is barely visible from the ground, which is exactly why it gets skipped by crews working fast.

Get this wrong and the symptoms are immediate and permanent: standing water in the low spot, mosquito breeding, mineral staining on the gutter face, sediment buildup that accelerates corrosion, and in cold climates an ice block that pulls the gutter off the fascia.

Two details separate a professional install:

Long runs get crowned. A 60-foot run should high-point in the middle and slope both directions to downspouts at each end, rather than dropping 1.5 inches across its whole length, which looks wrong from the street and puts the far end below the roof drip line.

Hangers, not spikes. Hidden hangers screwed into the fascia at 24 inches on center — 18 inches in snow country — are the modern standard. Spike-and-ferrule hangers work loose as the fascia expands and contracts and are a sign of either an old install or a cheap one. Hanger spacing is a line item worth asking about; it costs the contractor almost nothing to tighten and it is the difference between a gutter that holds an ice load and one that peels off.

The fascia change order

The old gutter comes off and the fascia behind it is soft. This happens on a meaningful share of replacements, especially where the previous gutter had open joints or where debris held water against the board for years.

Costs:

• Fascia board replacement: $12 to $30 per linear foot installed, depending on material and height
• Rotted sub-fascia or rafter tail repair: $150 to $600 per location. A rafter tail is a structural member, and sistering or replacing one is structural work — your locally adopted building code governs the repair detail, and it should be done by a licensed contractor rather than face-nailed over
• Soffit replacement where water traveled back: $8 to $20 per linear foot

The change order on a typical job lands between $400 and $1,800. Ask every bidder for a written per-linear-foot fascia repair price before work starts, and ask what they do if they find rot mid-install — a crew that hangs new gutter on a soft board to stay on schedule has just installed a failure.

If you are replacing fascia anyway, price the soffit at the same time with the Soffit & Fascia Calculator. The staging is up and the marginal labor is small. Doing it as a separate job next year means paying for access twice.

Before final payment, run a hose into the high end of every run. Water should reach the outlet without pooling, and nothing should drip behind the gutter at the fascia board.

Gutter guards: when they pay off

Guard pricing spans an enormous range because the category spans an enormous range of products.

Run the payback yourself. Two professional cleanings a year at $150 to $300 each is $300 to $600 annually. A micro-mesh package on 180 linear feet at $12 per foot is about $2,200, so break-even is four to seven years. Under heavy oak or pine, cleaning is more like three times a year and the payback shortens. On a house with no trees within 40 feet, guards are usually money spent on a problem you do not have.

Two warnings. First, no guard is maintenance-free; pine needles and shingle grit accumulate on top of mesh and have to be swept. Second, some guard systems void the gutter manufacturer’s warranty or interfere with roof warranties when they are fastened under the shingle course. Ask before you sign.

How to compare gutter quotes

The bids will look similar and hide different scope. Make every one of them state:

1. Total linear feet of gutter and total linear feet of downspout, as separate numbers
2. Profile and size — 5-inch K, 6-inch K, half-round — and material gauge, not just “aluminum”
3. Seamless or sectional, stated explicitly
4. Hanger type and spacing in inches on center
5. Downspout count and size (2x3 vs 3x4) and where each one terminates
6. Removal and disposal of the existing gutters — included or extra
7. A written per-linear-foot price for fascia repair if rot is found
8. Where the water discharges, including any extensions or buried lines
9. Color and finish, and whether the coil is baked enamel or a cheaper coating
10. Workmanship warranty in years, separate from the material warranty. One year is thin; five is a real commitment on a job this simple

If one quote is dramatically cheaper, it is usually sectional material, spike hangers, undersized downspouts, or all three.

Mistakes that blow the budget

Reusing the old downspout layout without checking it. Whoever put the last set on may have guessed. Recount against the 30-to-40-foot rule and the roof area feeding each outlet.

Undersizing to save $300. A 5-inch gutter on a steep roof overflows in the storms that matter, and the water lands in exactly the place you were trying to protect.

Leaving the discharge at the foundation. The most expensive $50 anyone ever saves.

Hanging new gutter on rotten fascia. Two years later the whole run sags and the repair now includes removing gutter you already paid for.

Skipping the water test. Ten minutes with a hose catches slope errors and leaking miters while the crew is still on site and still motivated.

Buying guards on the same visit as the estimate. High-pressure guard sales are common in this trade. Get the gutters right first, live with them for a season, then decide whether you have a debris problem worth $2,000.

These are 2026 national planning ranges. Real gutter pricing varies with local labor rates, aluminum coil costs, house height, and how difficult the eave is to reach — a house on a steep lot where one elevation requires scaffolding can cost 40 percent more than the same footage on flat ground. Copper and zinc pricing tracks commodity markets and can move noticeably within a single year. Get two or three on-site quotes from licensed, insured contractors who measure the roofline rather than estimating from a satellite image, and have them tell you specifically where each downspout will discharge. That last question separates the crews who think about water management from the ones who think about hanging metal. Gutter replacement itself is rarely permitted work, but the pieces attached to it often are — structural fascia and rafter repair, buried stormwater lines, and anything fastened through the roof deck. Your locally adopted building code and local stormwater rules govern those details, and the licensed contractor doing the work is the one who has to satisfy them.