Gutters look like the simplest exterior project to price. One number per foot, multiply by the eave length, done. In practice the per-foot figure is the part of the estimate that varies least between bids, and everything around it is what makes one quote half again the size of another.
Linear footage is the starting point, not the answer
Measure the eaves and you have the length. That gives you the aluminum, the hangers, and the labor to hang it. On a typical Clark County house that is genuinely most of the run.
What it does not include is the vertical: downspouts. A house with four downspouts and a house with seven at the same eave length are different jobs, and the seven-downspout house is usually the one that actually drains properly. Downspout count is driven by roof area feeding each run, not by aesthetics.
5-inch or 6-inch
The residential default is 5-inch K-style. Stepping up to 6-inch adds roughly half again the water capacity and a modest premium on material.
The 6-inch is worth it on steep roofs, long unbroken eave runs, and anywhere the existing gutters have been overflowing in heavy rain. Steep pitch matters more than people expect: water comes off an 8/12 with real velocity and can overshoot a 5-inch gutter entirely during a Pacific Northwest downpour, which looks like a gutter failure and is actually a sizing problem. We go through the tradeoff in 5-inch versus 6-inch gutters.
Material
Aluminum is the standard and is what the overwhelming majority of Clark County homes get. It is formed on site, comes in a wide color range, and lasts decades.
Copper is a different category entirely. It costs several times aluminum, develops the patina people want it for, and belongs on historic restorations and custom homes where the look is the point. It is not a value upgrade and we will say so.
Seamless is about joints, not price
Seamless means the eave run is formed on site as one continuous piece rather than assembled from stock lengths. Joints are where gutters leak, so removing every mid-run joint removes most of the future failure points. Corners and downspout outlets are still joints, and they are still where we look first when an old gutter drips.
Practically every reputable installer in this market runs a portable brake and fabricates on site, so seamless is not a premium option here. It is the baseline.
The fascia behind the gutter
This is the line item that turns a one-day gutter job into something else.
Gutters hang off the fascia board. If the old gutters have been overflowing for years, the fascia behind them is often soft, and hanging new gutters on rotten wood is pointless work. We check the fascia before quoting, because finding it afterward is how a gutter estimate doubles on the morning of install.
Homes under heavy fir canopy in La Center, Hockinson and Felida are the usual candidates, because chronically clogged gutters are what soaks fascia in the first place.
Guards, and whether they belong in this quote
Gutter guards are a real cost adder and the right answer depends entirely on what is dropping on your roof. Screen guards handle leaves and fail on fir needles. Micro-mesh handles fir and cedar debris, which is what most of Clark County actually deals with, and costs more.
Putting guards on a house with no overhanging trees is money spent on a problem you do not have. Putting the wrong guard on a house under a fir canopy is money spent on a problem it will not solve. We cover the specifics in gutter guards under fir and cedar.
Doing gutters with a re-roof
If a re-roof is on the horizon, doing gutters at the same time produces a better detail and costs less than doing them separately. The roofer integrates the drip edge over the gutter’s back edge so water leaves the shingles and enters the gutter without getting behind it. Done as two separate projects months apart, that transition is a compromise.
Why there is no published per-foot rate here
Because the per-foot rate is not what determines your total. Two 140-foot houses can differ substantially on downspout count, fascia condition, profile size and guard choice, and quoting a headline per-foot number would set an expectation that most homes would not match.
Our gutter installation and repair quotes start by measuring the eaves, counting what the downspouts actually need to be, and looking at the fascia, then putting all of it in writing. Free measure-and-quote, and if the fascia is sound we will tell you that too.
Questions worth asking any gutter bidder
- How many downspouts, and how did you decide that number?
- 5-inch or 6-inch, and why for this roof?
- Have you looked at the fascia? What happens if it is soft?
- Is this fabricated on site?
- Where does the water go once it leaves the downspout?
That last one gets skipped constantly. Water dumped at the foundation is a basement problem later. Extensions, splash blocks, or a tie-in to existing drain lines should be in the scope.