Gutters for a Detached Garage, Shed or Workshop in Cincinnati
Half the houses in Norwood, Oakley, Northside and Covington have a detached garage on the alley, built sometime between 1915 and 1955, and most of them have never had a gutter. The roof sheds onto the alley on one side and onto the neighbor’s fence line on the other, and after enough years the sill plate rots, the slab heaves, and somebody asks whether it’s worth putting gutters on a building that isn’t the house. Usually, yes. Here’s what it costs and what to think about.
Why a small building still needs gutters
A 20-by-22-foot garage roof is 440 square feet. An inch of rain on it is 270 gallons, and on an alley lot all of it lands within a foot of the walls. On a block or frame garage that means:
- Water against the slab edge, which heaves it in the freeze-thaw and cracks it at the door
- Splash-back rotting the bottom foot of siding and the sill plate
- Ice on the alley apron every winter morning, which on a shared alley is your problem and your neighbor’s
- Water running under the door and pooling on the floor
A shed or workshop is the same math at a smaller scale. A 10-by-12 shed sheds 75 gallons per inch of rain, and it all goes to the two long sides.
What it costs
Small jobs have a minimum charge, because the crew, the machine and the coil have to come out whether the run is 20 feet or 200. Seamless aluminum priced per foot on a house is $9–$14; on a stand-alone garage the same work is priced as a job.
| Building | Gutter | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| Single-car detached garage, gutter on one eave | 20–24 ft, one downspout | $350–$550 |
| Two-car detached garage, both eaves | 40–50 ft, two downspouts | $550–$850 |
| Garage with a rear addition or lean-to | 60–80 ft, three downspouts | $750–$1,100 |
| Shed or workshop, one eave | 10–16 ft, one downspout | $250–$400 |
| Any of the above with a rain barrel hookup | add a diverter and overflow | $60–$150 |
Those figures include hidden hangers, a 2x3 or 3x4 downspout with an extension or splash block, and haul-away of anything old. Add fascia repair at $8–$20 per foot if the board is rotten, which on a 1930s garage it often is at the low corner. The cheapest way to do a garage is on the same day as the house — the crew is already there — and then it’s priced per foot with the rest. The installation page covers what’s included.
Which side gets the gutter
On a gable garage the water comes off two eaves. The side facing the alley is the one that ices the apron and the one the neighbor sees; the side facing your yard is the one rotting the sill. If the budget only covers one, pick the side that drains toward something that matters — a foundation, a walkway, a property line — and put a downspout at the low corner. On a shed with the door on the gable end, one gutter on the eave above the path to the door does most of the work.
Where the water goes on an alley lot
This is the part that gets skipped. An alley garage sits on a lot line, and a downspout that discharges toward the neighbor’s garage is starting an argument. A downspout that discharges onto the alley freezes into a sheet that the city plow won’t touch. The options:
- Downspout to the yard side with a rigid extension carrying water 4 feet onto the lawn. Simplest and usually right.
- A rain barrel on the downspout. A 440-square-foot roof fills a 55-gallon barrel in a fifth of an inch of rain, so the overflow matters more than the barrel; it needs an overflow hose to the lawn, and the barrel needs draining and disconnecting before the freeze.
- A dry well or short buried line to a gravel pit under the lawn, for lots where the yard is all patio and there’s nowhere for the water to go. $300–$700.
Downspouts should not be connected to the sewer on a detached building; in the older parts of the city that’s a combined sewer and new connections aren’t permitted, and it needs a plumber and a permit anyway.
The old garages
The 1920s–40s garages in the older neighborhoods are worth a note. Many have a decorative rake and eave with no fascia board at all, just exposed rafter tails. A gutter still goes on — with roof-strap hangers under the shingles rather than screws into a fascia — and it looks fine. Some of the larger carriage houses in Clifton and East Walnut Hills have a small box gutter built into the eave, same as the main house; that’s a box gutter job scaled down, and it’s usually lined in EPDM for $35–$75 per foot.
Whether it’s worth doing
For a garage you use, yes, without much argument: a $500 gutter beats a $2,500 slab repair or a rotted sill. For a leaning shed you’re planning to replace, no. For a workshop with tools in it, the gutter and the extension are the difference between a dry floor and a wet one every spring, and the rain barrel on the downspout is a bonus for the garden. Call it a morning’s work, done the same day as a gutter repair on the house if you want the best price.
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