Gutter repair and box gutter relining in Hyde Park

Gutters in Hyde Park

The streets between Hyde Park Square and Ault Park — Observatory, Grandin, Erie, Paxton, Shaw, Edwards — are lined with foursquares, Tudors and Colonials built between 1905 and 1940, most under slate, most with built-in box gutters behind a wooden cornice. Many of the original terne liners in those troughs are long past their life. When one goes, the water doesn't drip on the lawn; it soaks the cornice, runs down inside the brick, and appears as a stain on a second-floor ceiling. That is why so many Hyde Park "roof leaks" turn out to be gutter leaks a roofer couldn't find.

The pin oaks and sugar maples planted along these streets generations ago are now very tall. They fill a box gutter trough with a leaf mat that holds water against the liner from November until March, and freeze-thaw does the rest. Mt. Lookout and the older streets of Oakley toward Madison Road have the same housing and the same problem, as do parts of nearby Mariemont and Indian Hill.

A typical relining job

Picture a 1925 foursquare on Observatory with 100 feet of box gutter, a stain on the northeast bedroom ceiling, and icicles hanging from the cornice every January. The usual fix: open the trough at the stain, find the liner rusted through and the trough board soft for a few feet, rebuild that section in new lumber, and reline the whole run in EPDM up under the slate. A job like that typically takes a couple of days and runs $5,000–$9,000 depending on how much wood is gone. The box gutter page explains each option and what it typically costs per foot.

Where the box gutter is past saving — the trough and the rafter tails both rotten — the roof edge gets rebuilt and half-round copper hung on cast brackets, which is what these houses look right with. That's covered on the installation page and quoted separately.

Typical gutter work in the neighborhood

• Box gutter repair and relining — EPDM or metal liners, trough rebuilds, internal downspouts
• Gutter repair — the aluminum on 1950s–80s additions, garages and porches; ice damage in March
• Seamless installation — half-round in copper or aluminum, K-style on the rear additions
• Gutter guards — stainless micro-mesh under the oaks; nothing on box gutters until the liner is sound
• Gutter cleaning — with an underground drain flush, because many of these downspouts drop into old clay tile

The drain under the yard

Most houses in Hyde Park have downspouts that disappear into the ground. Those lines run to the combined sewer and are often as old as the house. When one collapses, the downspout backs up and water sits against the foundation on that corner. Ask for every line to be flushed with a hose during a cleaning or repair, and for a note on which ones won't drain; a new line to daylight or a pop-up emitter typically runs $300–$700 per downspout.

What to check on a Hyde Park house

From the sidewalk and from inside, a few minutes tells you a lot:

• The cornice paint. Peeling or blistered paint along the roof edge, especially on the north and east sides, usually means water in the trough wood.
• The upstairs ceilings and the tops of outside walls. Stains that grow after a thaw point to the liner.
• Icicles in January. Icicles hanging from the cornice itself, rather than from a hung gutter, mean water is leaving the trough where it shouldn't.
• The downspouts at ground level. Look for one that ends at a clay stub with wet soil or moss around it.
• The additions. Rear kitchens, sunrooms and garages added in the 1950s–80s usually carry hanging aluminum, and those runs take the same ice damage as anywhere else.

Questions to ask before work starts

• Will you open the trough and show me the wood before the price is final?
• Do you lift and re-hang slate yourselves?
• Which liner do you recommend for this house, and why?
• How will you handle the internal downspouts?
• Is the property in a local historic district, and what does that mean for this job?
• What are the warranty terms, in writing?

Mistakes that cost owners here money

Hiring a roofer to "fix the leak" without anyone looking in the trough is the common one; the slate gets patched and the stain comes back. Coating a rusted liner with roof paint is the second. The third is converting a sound cornice to hanging aluminum because it was the only quote offered. The fourth is waiting for spring, since a pinholed liner that goes into winter under a leaf mat lets the freeze lift the seams further.

When the work is done

Ask for photos of the trough before, during and after, the liner spec, and a note of which downspouts and drain lines were tested. Keep them with the house papers. The next owner, or the next contractor, will want them.

Timing work on these houses

Relining needs dry weather, the slate needs care in the cold, and the membrane adhesive and sealants cure best in mild temperatures. That makes late spring through early fall the usual window for a full reline. If a liner is leaking now and the season is closing, a stopgap patch to get through the winter, with the reline booked for spring, is a reasonable plan; ask for both on the same estimate.

Historic district note

Parts of Hyde Park and the surrounding neighborhoods fall under local historic conservation rules. If yours does, exterior changes visible from the street — replacing a box gutter with a hanging gutter, say — may need a Certificate of Appropriateness, while relining a box gutter as it is generally doesn't change the exterior. Check with the city's Historic Conservation Board before work starts, and with your city building department about contractor registration and permits.

Typical prices

Typical ranges are similar to the rest of Cincinnati: repairs $150–$600, seamless aluminum $9–$14 per foot, box gutter relining $35–$75 per foot on sound wood, cleaning $120–$300 by house size. Box gutters and slate push the per-house total up here, not the per-foot rates. The cost page has the tables. Zip codes 45208 and 45209, plus Mt. Lookout, Oakley and East Walnut Hills.