Gutters & Downspouts in Kansas City, MO

Local context

Gutters & Downspouts in Kansas City — what's different here.

Kansas City sits in the Kansas City core part of the metro, where spring hail, straight-line wind, and winter freeze-thaw on old chimney flashing shape every roof. Homes here run to late-1930s-to-mid-1950s houses on the East Side and in KCK, 1920s brick in Brookside and Hyde Park, and 1960s-to-90s ranches in the Northland, most of them on their third or fourth roof, and a city permit comes before every tear-off, historic-district review applies in a few neighborhoods, and on a modest East Side or KCK house a repair or a documented claim is usually the realistic path.

Our shop is on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd near Swope Park, and the East Side is where we work most: Blue Hills, Santa Fe, Ivanhoe, Palestine, Vineyard, and Marlborough. These houses went up between the late 1930s and the mid 1950s, and a full replacement can run 10 to 25 percent of what the house is worth. So the first question is whether a few-hundred-dollar repair to the chimney flashing or a valley buys five more years. When it does not, documented hail or wind damage is the realistic path to a new roof, and we explain ACV versus RCV, depreciation, and the deductible before anything is filed. Tear-offs here mean two shingle layers, some rotten decking, and boxed gutters, priced up front. About half the households on these blocks rent, so landlords and tenants with a leak call us as often as owners. The Northeast along Independence Avenue and the Westside are older still, with large Hispanic communities and a lot of long-held family houses. Brookside, Waldo, and Hyde Park are 1920s and 30s brick with slate, tile, and copper details that usually deserve a repair, and Hyde Park and Santa Fe carry historic-district review before a permit. The Northland is 1960s-to-90s ranches on their second or third shingle. The city permits every full replacement, and after each hail event out-of-town crews knock doors here offering to waive the deductible, which is illegal in Missouri. We are on these blocks all year.

Older core homes often have built-in box gutters or undersized half-rounds that overflow in a Kansas City downpour and send water into the foundation and the basement. We repair what can be repaired, replace with properly sized seamless gutters and downspouts when it cannot, and keep the number small enough to make sense on a modest house.

What it looks like in practice:

• Seamless aluminum, formed on-site
• Sized for Kansas City downpours
• Downspouts that discharge away from the foundation
• Replaced with the roof or on their own