Storm-Season Gutter Checklist for Tampa Homes
The statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is September 10. If you are reading this the week it was published, you are a few days past it, with eleven weeks of season still to go and the Gulf warmer than it has been all year. This is not a checklist for June. It is the mid-season one: what to look at now, between storms, so the gutters are still on the house in December.
You do not need a ladder for most of it. Stand back from each wall, then walk the drip line.
1. Hangers and straps: is anything loose?
Wind does not rip off a well-hung gutter. It gets under a gutter that is already loose at one hanger and uses the rest of the run as a lever. Sight along each run from the end. Any dip, any gap between the back of the gutter and the fascia, any hanger you can see daylight through is the weak point.
Downspouts get the same look. Each one should be strapped to the wall at the top, the bottom and every eight feet between. A downspout hanging on its elbow alone will be in the neighbor's yard after the first tropical-storm-force gust. Straps are a few dollars each and ten minutes to add.
Near the bay, in Shore Acres, Davis Islands or along Bayshore, this is where salt shows up. The aluminum looks new; the steel screws holding it are orange and crumbling. If you can see rust bleeding from a hanger, assume the ones you cannot see are the same. A stainless re-hang is $180–$350 a run, and it is worth doing before the wind does it for you.
2. Fascia: is the wood behind the gutter still wood?
Push a screwdriver into the fascia near each corner and below each downspout. If it goes in, the hanger has nothing to hold, whatever the hanger looks like. On block homes the fascia is the only wood at the roof edge and it has been wet for forty summers. Soft fascia gets replaced before a storm, not after, because a gutter that peels off takes the board with it and sometimes the soffit too.
3. Flow: does water get out?
Run a hose into the far end of each run and watch the downspout. Slow trickle means a clog somewhere between. No water at the bottom means the elbow is packed. Water over the front edge before it reaches the downspout means pitch or capacity, which why gutters overflow in Tampa rain sorts out. A gutter that cannot empty is a gutter carrying forty pounds of water per ten feet into a windstorm.
4. Extensions: where does the water land?
Every downspout should end at least four feet from the wall. Check that the extensions are still there; the mower took half of them in July. On a lanai or pool cage, look at the corner where the super gutter drains. If it lands on the deck, the deck is going to move. Downspouts and your Tampa foundation covers distances and costs.
5. Roof edge: shingles, tile and drip edge
From the ground, look for lifted shingle tabs along the eave and for the metal drip edge running behind the gutter. Missing or bent drip edge lets wind-driven rain go behind the gutter and down the fascia. On tile roofs, look for a slipped or cracked tile at the eave; a tile that goes in a storm takes the gutter under it. Those are roofer items, but they decide whether the gutter survives.
6. Trees and debris
Palm fronds are the storm-season problem here. A frond blown across a gutter dams it completely. Trim fronds that overhang the roof, and look at the gutters the morning after any windy night, not just after a named storm. Live oak limbs over the roof are the other thing; a limb that comes down takes the gutter and the fascia with it.
The ten-minute version
- Sight each run for dips and gaps
- Check every downspout has straps top, bottom and middle
- Screwdriver test at corners and below downspouts
- Hose test each run
- Extensions in place, four feet minimum
- Look at the lanai or cage corner
- Fronds and limbs off the roof
If a storm is inside the cone
Do not get on a ladder the day before. Pull the extensions off and lay them flat so they do not become projectiles, and leave the gutters alone. After the storm, before you touch anything, photograph every run from the ground, including the ones that look fine. If a section is hanging, photograph it hanging. Adjusters want to see the damage as the wind left it, and we quote from the same photos. Gutter repair after a storm goes to the front of our schedule, and hurricane gutter repair Tampa homeowners call about in September is mostly re-hanging sections that were loose in August.
The National Hurricane Center's forecast page at nhc.noaa.gov is the one to watch, not the news graphic. If your gutters are loose today, fix them today. The season runs to November 30.
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