Read the gap before touching anything
Stand back in the yard and study the shape of the gap. If the whole run tipped forward evenly, the hangers are probably holding and the gutter is overloaded or pitched wrong. If it pulled away in one spot, look hard at that spot. One loose place almost always means one bad fastener or one patch of soft wood.
Then check the top edge of the board above the gap. Dark streaks, peeling paint and daylight between the board and the shingles all say water has been getting behind the gutter for a long while. That's a wood problem first.
Short of a ladder, that's about as far as anyone can diagnose. The rest takes a screwdriver up close. When we come out, we'll photograph the bad spots so you see the same thing we see before any work is agreed.
Spikes backing out
A lot of older houses around St. Louis were hung with long spikes driven through a metal sleeve into the fascia. Spikes work loose. Every freeze-thaw cycle swells and shrinks the wood around the shank, and every year the spike backs out a little further. On a 1950s north county ranch it's common to find spike heads standing a quarter inch proud of the lip.
Hammering them back doesn't last. The hole is already wallowed out. We pull them and switch to hidden hangers screwed into solid wood at roughly two-foot spacing.
Screws that never found wood
Newer houses can fail in a different way. On a lot of St. Charles County builds the gutter is thin .019 aluminum on hidden hangers, which sounds fine until you find screws that caught only the edge of a board or a gap between two of them. The first heavy snow pulls those straight out.
Metal that thin also flexes between hangers. Load it with ice and it kinks, and a kinked trough never sits right again. Sometimes we rehang and add hangers. Sometimes we tell you the metal isn't worth saving, and we'll show you why with photos from the roof.
When the board itself is gone
Push a screwdriver into the fascia right beside a hanger. Sound wood resists. Rotten wood lets the tip sink in with hand pressure, and it often smells musty. No fastener made will hold a gutter in that for long.
The repair is to take the gutter down, cut out the soft length, replace it, then rehang. If water caused the rot, we track down how it got there, or the new board goes the same way. Our page on water getting behind the gutter covers the usual sources, and rotted fascia board covers the carpentry.
Weight nobody planned for
A trough full of soaked oak tassels and silver maple seeds is heavy. Add a January ice load and it's heavier still. Hangers that held for fifteen years can quit in one bad week when the outlets are plugged and water has nowhere to go. Our ice dam page explains why some eaves load up worse than others.
Ladders are the other culprit. Leaning one on the gutter lip to hang lights bends the front edge down and pries the back edge off the board. Use a standoff bracket, or rest the ladder on the roof edge above the gutter.
Rehang or replace
Most of the time a run that's pulled loose in a spot or two, with sound metal and sound wood, just gets rehung. That's an ordinary gutter repair visit, often finished the same day.
Replacement starts to make sense when the metal is kinked in several places, the seams drip along the run, or it's sectional gutter with a joint every ten feet and all of them starting to leak. Fixing the pulls on a system like that leaves you with an old, leaky gutter that happens to hang straight. Our gutter replacement page explains how that gets priced.
Fixes we won't do
We won't drive a new hanger into wood we know is rotten, even if you'd rather skip the carpentry. It'll fail, and our name would be on it.
We won't put guards on a gutter that's pulling off the house. Rehang it first, then decide about guards once it's sound.
And we won't tell you to replace every gutter on the house because one corner dropped. One corner is a repair. A lifetime workmanship warranty only means something if the work was the right work.
Questions about loose gutters
Can I push the gutter back and nail it myself?
It might look right for a few weeks. The old hole is already enlarged, so the nail backs out again with the next freeze. A screw-in hanger set into fresh, solid wood is what holds.
Is a gutter pulling away an emergency?
Usually not, but it shouldn't wait for months. If it's hanging low over a walkway, or water is pouring behind it into the house, call us. We answer 24/7.
How far apart should gutter hangers be?
About every two feet is a sound standard for hidden hangers here, and closer under heavy trees or where ice builds up. Wide spacing is what usually fails first.
Why does only the north side keep pulling loose?
North eaves stay shaded and cold, so snow and ice sit there longest and keep weight on those hangers for weeks. The wood dries slowly on that side too, which speeds up rot.
Will homeowners insurance cover a gutter pulling off?
Wear and loose fasteners usually aren't covered. Sudden damage from a storm or a falling limb can be. If it happened in a storm, take photos before anything gets moved.
Get a loose gutter looked at
Let us know which side of the house it's on and how far it has pulled away.
Loose gutter? Call a St. Louis gutter company that checks the wood
Third generation and family-run since 1947, with a BBB A+ rating and Roofing Contractor Magazine Top 100 recognition. Free estimates, and someone live on the phone day or night.