Why Franklin Boulevard houses are harder to gutter than most
The Franklin Boulevard Historic District covers about 36 acres just west of downtown Pontiac, roughly between the railroad, Orchard Lake Avenue, Miller Street and West Huron Street. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The houses range from the 1840s to the early 1900s, in Greek Revival, Italianate and Queen Anne styles.
Franklin Boulevard itself was platted in 1886 and is lined with large detached houses of 2.5 to 3 stories, set well back from the street. The side avenues, such as Mary Day and Henry Clay, have smaller houses on smaller lots.
Each of those styles treats the roof edge differently, and none of them like a modern subdivision house.
Queen Anne: many roof planes, many corners
A Queen Anne house can have a main hip roof, several cross gables, a tower or turret, bay windows with their own small roofs, and a wraparound porch. Each surface sheds water somewhere.
The gutter layout ends up as a set of short runs at different heights with many inside and outside corners, and several upper roofs that drain onto lower ones. We map each roof plane and decide where its water goes before forming any gutter.
Italianate: wide eaves, brackets and built-in gutters
Italianate houses have deep overhanging eaves carried on decorative brackets, and many were built with the gutter hidden inside the cornice. Hanging a modern gutter across those brackets changes the look of the house and can trap water against old wood. Where a built-in gutter has failed, the right fix needs thought, and review by the city.
Height
3-story eaves put the gutter far above the ground. Cleaning isn't a homeowner job at that height, problems go unnoticed for longer, and a loose section is a real hazard. Downspouts are long and need solid strapping to brick or wood siding.
Historic district review for Franklin Boulevard homes
Franklin Boulevard is a local historic district as well as a National Register district. The City of Pontiac's Historic District Commission reviews exterior work and issues a Certificate of Appropriateness, and that comes before a building permit. For gutters the commission will care about visible changes: profile, material, color, and downspouts on the street face.
Speak to the city before choosing. We can supply the profile, size and color details an application needs, and suggest options such as half-round gutters with round downspouts that suit a house of this period. See seamless gutter installation for materials and sizing.
Gutter problems we commonly find on these houses
- Rot in wood cornices, fascia and porch trim where water has been getting behind a gutter for years. A century or more of paint hides it well. See fascia and soffit repair.
- Upper downspouts emptying onto porch roofs, overloading the porch gutter and wearing out the roofing below.
- Overflow at inside corners where 2 steep roof planes meet in a valley.
- Old downspouts running into buried clay lines that collapsed long ago. The water backs up and soaks the foundation. See downspouts and drainage.
- Mismatched gutters from many decades of partial repairs.
- High gutters that haven't been cleaned in years. Our gutter cleaning service covers 3-story eaves.
Stone and brick foundations of this age weren't built with modern waterproofing. Keeping roof water away from them is the cheapest protection an old house can get.
How we approach a Franklin Boulevard gutter job
We look at the whole house first: what kind of gutters it has, what it was built with, the state of the wood, and where the water is going wrong. On a house this old, repairing sound gutters is often the better choice than replacing them, and we say so when it is.
Where replacement is right, you get options with the tradeoffs explained, and we plan the schedule around any city review. If something is hanging or water is coming in, call any hour for emergency gutter repair.
The district is a short drive from our shop on Voorheis Street and is part of the area covered by our gutter repair and installation service in Pontiac. We do similar work on the 1920s homes of nearby Seminole Hills and on the turn-of-the-century houses of Fairgrove Avenue.
Franklin Boulevard gutter questions
Does gutter work in the Franklin Boulevard district need city approval?
Franklin Boulevard is one of Pontiac's local historic districts. The city's Historic District Commission reviews exterior work there and issues a Certificate of Appropriateness before a building permit can be applied for. Ask the city's planning office what your project needs before committing to a new gutter style, material or color.
My Italianate house has gutters built into the cornice. Can they be repaired?
Built-in gutters are a lined trough inside the roof edge. When the lining fails, water goes into the cornice and wall.
Relining is specialized sheet-metal or roofing work. We can inspect and clear built-in gutters, repair the downspouts they feed, and tell you plainly whether the lining needs a specialist.
Why does a 3-story house cost more to gutter?
Height. Eaves 30 feet or more above the ground need longer ladders or staging, more setup time and more care, and each downspout is 3 stories long. Complex Queen Anne rooflines also have many short runs and corners, and each corner is cut and sealed by hand.
Do porch roofs need their own gutters?
Usually. A wraparound porch has a low-slope roof that collects water from its own surface and often from an upper downspout that empties onto it. Without a gutter, that water falls on the steps and soaks the porch framing and columns, which are expensive to repair.