Anatomy Of The Standard Muncie
Home’s Rain Gutter System

And How We Make Them Even Better

The average Muncie, Indiana, area homeowner doesn’t spend much time thinking about their rain gutter system, but it’s an essential part of your home’s protective shell. Without a good, properly installed gutter system, your siding, roofing, and foundation are all at risk.

Rain gutters aren’t intricate, but a lot of engineering goes into their design, and a quality installation is the difference between an early failure or decades of worry-free protection for your home. As a homeowner, knowledge is power, and knowing what you need for a proper rain gutter system allows you to make the right choices and avoid future headaches.

Rain Gutter Basics

Your rain gutter system has one job – to collect and guide rainwater from your roof away from your home. It’s a simple concept, but it requires careful design and installation to operate efficiently.

In the above image is seen the basics of every rain gutter system, which consists of:

• Gutters – catch and transmit rainwater from the roof
• Downspout – drains the rainwater from the gutter
• Extension – carries the rainwater away from the home

Each of these is a simple device with an easily understandable task. Each can vary aesthetically and in capacity, but the basic principles are the same whether they are simple squared-off tubes of vinyl or the fancy copper system shown at the top of this page.

One feature that isn’t standard for most installations is the hinge on the extension. This hinge, called a Zip Hinge, allows homeowners to simply flip the extension up and out of the way while mowing the lawn. It’s a handy feature that we believe should be on every gutter system, which is why it is standard for every system we install.

What You Don’t See

Some of the important details of a rain gutter system are hidden from view, such as:

• Gutter Flashing – Installed behind the gutter and beneath roof shingles to prevent rainwater from working its way behind the gutter
• Hangers – Support brackets that hold the gutter to the fascia
• Caulking – Fills in seams at endcaps and joints to prevent leaks

Each of these parts is available at different levels of capability and quality, and picking the right type can mean the difference between a gutter system that lasts ten years and one that will still look and work great after 20 years or more.

Gutter Materials – You Get
What You Pay For

There are many options when it comes to the material you can use to build your gutter system. The most popular materials are:

• Vinyl – Inexpensive and proof against most weather, vinyl is the most popular material for gutters. However, vinyl is known to crack if struck by heavy debris and can get brittle in extreme cold, and that’s why we don’t offer vinyl to our customers.
• Aluminum – Coming in at a close second to vinyl, aluminum is a durable material that can handle any type of weather. While standard versions of the material have been known to crack over time, we use aluminum that is almost 20% thicker than the standard, making a much more durable gutter.
• Copper – Most often chosen for its beauty, copper is also an exceptionally durable material. It’s most often installed on historical or high-end homes due to the expense of the product and the labor-intensive installation process.

Construction Process

Lengths of gutter can be assembled out of standard lengths of material with the addition of elbows and flexible sections, but this process involves creating multiple seams along each section. Every seam is a potential leak, so we never use this process.

Instead, we custom manufacture our gutters on-site using extrusion machines mounted in each of our work vans. With extrusion, we can build seamless gutters of any length, which gives our installations superior performance and eliminates almost all opportunities for leaks to form.

This process also allows homeowners to pick from a variety of shapes and styles to better fit the look of their home. We even offer seamless copper gutters using the same system.

The Clemens Difference

The gutter industry offers installers dozens of options for each piece of your gutter system. We always look for the best, longest-lasting, and most efficient options and never make our decisions based on cost. We know that the little things count, such as:

• Strong Hangers – Our hangers are the best you can buy and have the added benefit of being hidden from view, giving your gutters a clean, uncluttered look.
• Superior Sealant – The caulking we use is designed specifically for gutter systems and will perform as expected for the life of the system.
• Deeper Gutters – We don’t even consider using the smaller gutters unless the fascia can’t support the larger system. 6” gutters can move 40% more water than 5” gutters, which can mean the difference between success or failure when dealing with heavy rainfall.
• Leaf Protection – After vetting many different leaf protection systems, we’ve settled on the very best leaf guard system on the market. Until LeafX® entered the market, every leaf protection system available had a drawback. Either they were inefficient, eventually clogged, or were just plain ugly – LeafX® has none of these problems.
  This system looks good, will never clog, and will keep performing as advertised even in the heaviest rain.
• Hinged Extensions – Our Zip Hinge equipped extensions are standard on every installation. Being able to flip the extension out of your way seems a small thing, but it only takes hitting an extension with your mower once to weaken or even tear away your downspout or gutters.

Simply put, a Clemens Home Solutions rain gutter system is the most complete, most efficient, and most attractive system you can put on your home. And to top it all off, our Clemens Guarantee makes sure that your system will work as expected, or we’ll refund every penny you spend.

If you need new gutters for your Muncie, Indiana, area home and want the most bang for your buck, contact us at Clemens Home Solutions for a free estimate.