Gutters: vinyl, galvanized or aluminum

[j12...@excite.com]

Gutters: Which one is best: vinyl, galvanized or aluminum?

Vinyl is cheapest at the hardware store.

Which kind can be painted to match the house's paint?
I would think vinyl would not allow paint to stick?

Does that off the shelf corners of vinyl gutters
actually seal and not leak? They seem to have some black built-in
gasket to join 2 sections at the corner.

Thanks.

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Before you buy.

[Roger Taylor]

Depends on where you live. Here at the seacoast the choices are copper
or vinyl, as aluminum and galv. steel rot pretty fast. We've had pretty
good luck with vinyl, it's easy to install, but is more delicate than
steel.
In Dallas we had a contractor come out and do seamless powder coated
aluminum, formed on the spot, with no splices between down spouts. We
got extra wide gutters due to the deluges there.

[davefrN...@myremarq.com.invalid]

It oxidizes. Have you ever seen an old aluminum Bar B Q with
all those white discolorations. That's aluminum oxidation and
it destroys aluminum just like rust destroys steel.

Aluminum might last a tad bit longer but it's an illusion to
think that it won't deteriorate.

Actually baked enamel steel gutters might be the best.
Stronger, less expansion contraction on the mitres, and might
hold the enamel coating longer than aluminum.

I'm also curious which is best gutter???

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[Daniel Hicks]

j12...@excite.com wrote:
>
> Gutters: Which one is best: vinyl, galvanized or aluminum?
>
> Vinyl is cheapest at the hardware store.
>
> Which kind can be painted to match the house's paint?
> I would think vinyl would not allow paint to stick?
>
> Does that off the shelf corners of vinyl gutters
> actually seal and not leak? They seem to have some black built-in
> gasket to join 2 sections at the corner.

I've never seen a vinyl guttering job that looked good two years later.
You can sometimes paint vinyl, sometimes not. Depends on the vinyl and
the paint.

Galvanized rusts out fairly rapidly -- within 5 years in many cases. It
will take paint if you clean it first.

Best bet is heavyweight seamless aluminum. You can probably get someone
to install it cheaper than you can DIY. It comes in several colors, so
you can probably find one that matches (or at least complements) your
house colors and avoid painting. Or you can get it white an paint it --
the factory finish aids adhesion of the new paint.

[Mary]

I'm curious as to how aluminum "rots" pretty fast. It won't rust, so
how does it rot?

On Tue, 25 Jul 2000 04:15:00 GMT, Roger Taylor <tayl...@flash.net>
wrote:

>Depends on where you live. Here at the seacoast the choices are copper
>or vinyl, as aluminum and galv. steel rot pretty fast. We've had pretty
>good luck with vinyl, it's easy to install, but is more delicate than
>steel.
>In Dallas we had a contractor come out and do seamless powder coated
>aluminum, formed on the spot, with no splices between down spouts. We
>got extra wide gutters due to the deluges there.
>
>

>j12...@excite.com wrote:
>
>> Gutters: Which one is best: vinyl, galvanized or aluminum?
>>
>> Vinyl is cheapest at the hardware store.
>>
>> Which kind can be painted to match the house's paint?
>> I would think vinyl would not allow paint to stick?
>>
>> Does that off the shelf corners of vinyl gutters
>> actually seal and not leak? They seem to have some black built-in
>> gasket to join 2 sections at the corner.
>>

[Mary]

You would have to define "stronger" to say that steel gutters are
stronger than aluminum. When we had our seamless aluminum gutters
installed, I asked about steel. I was told the steel has to be
thinner to go through the machines. The aluminum gutters are stronger
in that they don't dent and bend as easily as steel. There have been
discussions about gutters on this newsgroup. The majority of posters
seem to prefer seamless aluminum (which is thicker than the aluminum
gutters you can guy at the local home improvement store).

[Daniel Hicks]

"dav...@myremarq.com" wrote:
>
> It oxidizes. Have you ever seen an old aluminum Bar B Q with
> all those white discolorations. That's aluminum oxidation and
> it destroys aluminum just like rust destroys steel.
>
> Aluminum might last a tad bit longer but it's an illusion to
> think that it won't deteriorate.
>
> Actually baked enamel steel gutters might be the best.
> Stronger, less expansion contraction on the mitres, and might
> hold the enamel coating longer than aluminum.
>
> I'm also curious which is best gutter???

Factory painted aluminum will hold its finish for decades, and it won't
rust even if the finish fails. Except in certain corrosive
environments, aluminum will last a lot longer than steel.

The main problem with steel is that the joints will rust out in ten
years or so. The rest of the gutter will usually be sound but the
joints will turn to dust.