First-time gutter installation on Tampa block homes

Why so many Tampa homes have no gutters

From about 1960 through the mid-1980s, builders across Town 'n' Country, Carrollwood, Temple Terrace, Brandon and the mid-century grids of St. Petersburg and Clearwater put up single-story concrete-block homes with low-slope roofs and wide overhangs, and skipped gutters. Sandy soil drains fast, there is no basement to flood, and the overhang kept the walls dry enough. The cost was left for the next owner: a trench in the mulch, algae up the block, a hollow at the slab corner where the roof valley dumps, and a lanai that floods at one end every afternoon in August.

What is different about a first-time install

No tear-off, so the labor is a little less than a replacement, and the per-foot price sits at the low end of the installation range.

The fascia has never held anything. On a block home the fascia is usually a 1x6 or 2x6 nailed to the truss tails. Some are sound; some have been wet from roof runoff for decades and are soft at every rafter. We probe every few feet before quoting. Where the board is gone, we replace it before hanging anything, priced per foot. Where there is no fascia at all, just exposed truss tails and a soffit, we use roof-strap hangers or add a fascia board first.

The roof edge was not built for a gutter. Many of these roofs have no drip edge, or the shingles or tile stop short of where a gutter lip would sit. Water can run behind the new gutter and down the fascia. We add drip edge flashing where it is missing; on a barrel-tile roof we set the gutter to catch the tile overhang and do not touch the tile.

The lanai and the pool cage. This is the part that takes thought. A screened lanai or a pool enclosure usually sits against the back wall, and the roof above it drains onto the cage's own super gutter or straight through the screen. We route downspouts to the corners of the enclosure, tie into the super gutter where one exists, and run extensions or a buried line so the water does not land on the pool deck. We do not lean ladders on cage rails.

Where the water goes. Sandy soil does not hold water against the house, but it washes. A downspout that dumps at a slab corner will hollow the sand out from under it in a couple of summers. Every drop gets an extension to at least four feet, or a drain line to the yard or the street where the lot is flat. Downspouts and your Tampa foundation explains why this matters on sand as much as on clay.

Sizing

Same rules as any Tampa install. Most single-story block homes take 5-inch seamless aluminum with 3x4 downspouts, one downspout per 35 feet of run, and 6-inch on any run catching a valley or a big roof plane. Low-slope roofs actually help: water arrives at the gutter slower than off a steep roof, so a properly sized 5-inch run keeps up.

Partial installs

You may not need the whole house. Plenty of block homes only need gutters over the front entry, the garage door, the side where the AC sits and the wall above the lanai. We will do the runs that solve the problem if that is what you want, and price it per foot the same way. Adding gutters to the rest later matches fine because the color chart does not change.

What it costs

Seamless aluminum at $10–$16 per foot for first-time work, so a typical 140–160 foot block ranch with four downspouts is $1,400–$2,400. Fascia replacement, drip edge and drain lines are separate lines on the same estimate, and you will see each one before deciding. Gutter installation Tampa FL homeowners put off for decades usually comes in under the cost of the pool-deck repair it prevents.

If the house does have gutters and they are simply old, the installation and replacement page is the right one.