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How to Choose the Right Rain Gutters for your Home

Rain gutters are one thing that you shouldn’t leave to chance. You might think that it’s simple enough to choose your guttering – just pick the colour and style that suits your home best.

But that’s not all there is to it. You need to make sure you choose the right size rain gutters to prevent problems from occurring in the future.

If you have gutters that are too small, they will get clogged and spill water over the edges when it rains heavily. But if you choose gutters that are too large, they’ll make your property look ugly and could even reduce its value.

Choosing the right size rain gutters

So how do you go about choosing the right size rain gutters? You’ll probably find that most houses will have a 5- or 6-inch ‘K-style’ gutter, a bit like this:
k style rain gutters They can handle normal rainfall just fine.

But if you live in an area that gets lots of heavy rain or you have a very steep roof, you might have to invest in larger guttering to handle the amount of water that they will be subject to.

There are some simple steps you can take to find out which size rain gutters you should go for. We’ll shed some light here.

Measure the area of your roof

If it’s safe to do so, get up on your roof and measure the area of your roof. If you don’t want to do this yourself, a guttering specialist will do this for you and determine the size gutters you need.

If you’ve got a normal gable-end roof, you’ll only need to know two figures – one for each slope. But if you have a more difficult roof shape it will take longer as you’ll need to add up the area of each surface.

Find out the pitch of your roof

The angle that your roof is at is also a factor that will determine what size rain gutters you need.

Use a two-foot spirit level and a tape measure to find out the pitch of your roof. Hold the level against the roof, then measure the distance from the centre point of the level down to the roof below. This will give you a ratio. So if you measure 4 inches vertically from the level down to the roof, then that’s an angle of 12 inches across for 4 inches down.

Does all that sound a bit complicated? We don’t blame you. A guttering company will be able to work out the size gutters you need for you so you don’t have to get up on the roof and measure it yourself.

Just fill in the form below and we’ll put you in touch with up to 4 companies who will be able to advise you on the size rain gutters you need and give you a quote.

Emily Rivers

Emily Rivers is the Customer Experience Manager at Quotatis. She informs customers of the latest developments in a range of products so they can make the best choice for their homes and ensures they get the best out of our service.