Aluminum gutters

By Gutter Report Editorial. Last reviewed August 2026. How we research this.

In brief

1.0What aluminum costs installed

The This Old House figure is our arithmetic on their own $3,352 for 200 feet. The Today's Homeowner band is worth flagging: 29 cents of spread on a national estimate is tighter than any other source by a wide margin, which reads like a modeled number rather than a survey. Modernize prints two different aluminum ranges on one page, $8.25 to $26.40 and $8.80 to $27.90, which is a good reminder of what these figures are.

Add-ons sit on top of all of it. Tearing off the old run costs $1 to $2 a foot, per HomeGuide, or a flat $150 to $300, per Angi. A second story adds $1 to $3 a foot. To run your own footage, use the cost calculator or the per foot breakdown.

2.0Seamless or sectional

Aluminum is the material seamless was invented for. A truck-mounted machine rolls flat coil into finished gutter at the curb, so one run has no joints except at corners and outlets. What that costs extra depends entirely on who you ask.

Three of the four land between $2 and $5 a foot extra, which also matches the $3 to $5 that HomeGuide states outright. Fixr is the outlier at $8 to $9. The Today's Homeowner row is our arithmetic on their project totals at 200 feet. Full detail on seamless gutters is here.

3.0Thickness is the spec nobody quotes

Aluminum gutter is sold by thickness in thousandths of an inch. This is the number that decides whether the run sags, and it is the number missing from most quotes.

That table is ours, built by listing every thickness against every product in the Englert, Berger and Amerimax catalogs and keeping what all three agreed on. Spectra Gutter Systems puts the choice plainly: .027 for mild to moderate climates and budget jobs, .032 for heavy rain, heavy snow or frequent severe weather, .040 for commercial roofs and multi-story buildings where a failure is a liability.

Watch the low end. Amerimax lists 5 inch straight-back K-style stock at .0185 inch, and that is what a $12.98 big box section is. It is thinner than every manufacturer standard above. A gutter that thin holds water fine and dents if you look at it.

4.0What the metal actually costs

Cost guides put aluminum material at $10 to $13 a foot. Retail shelves do not agree, and the gap is worth understanding before you read a quote.

Per foot figures on the section rows are our arithmetic. Two findings sit in that table. The identical .0185 section priced at $12.98 in three stores and $17.98 in three others on the same day, a 39 percent spread on one item. And trade .032 coil at $4.08 a foot is about three times the big box .0185 section, which is a thickness premium, not a markup.

So the $10 to $13 a foot that Fixr calls aluminum material is not raw stock. It is stock plus hangers, outlets, miters, sealant, waste and the contractor's margin. That is fair, but it is not what the word material suggests.

5.0How long aluminum lasts

Everything clusters at 20 to 30 years. The National Association of Home Builders is the conservative end at a flat 20, and it is the only non-commercial source here. Its separate 30 year figure for downspouts is a detail no cost guide reports: the vertical parts outlast the horizontal ones, because they never hold standing water or leaf litter.

6.0The warranty, and what prorated takes back

Aluminum gutter warranties cover the paint finish, not the metal and not the install. They are also prorated, which is the part that matters.

Here is what prorated does to the Englert 20 year term. The maker pays 100 percent of the repaint or replace cost in year one. That drops 10 percentage points a year through year five, then 5 points a year through year 14, then sits at 10 percent of the original installed cost from year 15 to year 20. So a finish problem in year 12 is mostly your bill. There is also a 45 day window to file after you notice the defect.

The LeafGuard lifetime term is worth reading closely too. The same manufacturer gives 20 prorated years on ordinary seamless aluminum and a lifetime term on its branded one piece system. The lifetime attaches to that product, not to aluminum.

7.0How aluminum is hung

Hidden hangers screw through the back of the gutter into the fascia board. Englert calls for about 24 inches between them, and 16 inches in heavy snow country. Spectra says 24 inches or less. Englert's own material planning chart uses one hanger per 2 feet of gutter, so 180 feet of gutter takes about 90 hangers, which is the same 24 inch spacing said a different way.

Slope is 1/4 inch of fall for every 10 feet toward the downspout. Amerimax, Englert, This Old House and Modernize all publish that same figure, which almost nothing else in this trade agrees on so cleanly.

8.0You may not need new gutters

Aluminum at 20 to 30 years outlives most of the reasons people call about it. Before you price a replacement, name the actual symptom. A drip at a joint is a seam, and sectional aluminum has one every 10 feet. A section pulling away is a hanger or the fascia behind it. Water sheeting over the front in a downpour is slope, a clog, or too few downspouts, and none of those is fixed by new gutter.

Replacing sound aluminum because one thing on it failed is the most common overspend in this trade. A repair at a national average of $275 answers most of these complaints, and rotted fascia has to be fixed first anyway, whatever you hang on it. We can say that plainly because we do not sell gutters and we do not install them.

Where replacement does make sense: the run is .0185 stock that sags between hangers, the finish is chalking across the whole house, or you are re-roofing anyway and the gutter comes off regardless. See replacement cost for that case.

Rev

RevAugust 2026

Source

SourceHomeGuide, Fixr, Angi, This Old House, Englert, Amerimax, Berger, Spectra, NAHB (read 2026-08-21)