Four walls of gutter and four corners
On a gable house, two walls carry gutter and two don't. A hip roof has no gable ends, so the eave wraps all the way around and every wall gets a trough. That's twice the corners of a plain gable, and corners are where gutter leaks.
Each corner is a miter, a joint where two runs meet at ninety degrees. On a hip roof that corner collects water from two roof faces sliding toward the same point. When the sealant in a miter dries out, you get a steady drip right where the house meets the ground. Often that's directly over a basement window well.
We reseal the sound ones. We rebuild the ones that have opened. Where a corner keeps spilling in a hard rain, we look at whether an outlet belongs right beside it.
Guards on a hip roof: our honest take
Covers make more sense on a hip roof than on most houses, simply because there's so much trough to keep clean. They still aren't a fix for gutter that's too small or hung wrong. Put a guard on an overflowing 4-inch run and the water goes over the guard instead.
Where there are oaks, we steer people to micro-mesh over coarse screens, since tassels slip through a wide screen and plug the trough under it. Even micro-mesh wants a brush-off now and then under heavy oak. Anyone promising you'll never touch the gutter again is overselling. We weigh it out on our page asking whether guards are worth the money.
We also won't cover a run we'd rather replace. Guarding metal with a year or two left in it just adds cost to the teardown.
Bevo Mill work we do most
Sizing by roof face, not by habit
Plenty of Bevo Mill houses still carry 4-inch trough on at least one side. Over the decades some walls got 5-inch and others were left alone, so one house can have two sizes hung on it. That mismatch isn't automatically wrong. It depends on how much roof drains to each wall.
A hip roof splits its area unevenly. The long front and back faces are big trapezoids, and the short side faces are triangles. The trapezoid walls usually need more capacity. We measure each face and its pitch, then size gutter and outlet count wall by wall.
The outlet matters as much as the trough. A 5-inch run with one 2x3 downspout at the far end will still spill mid-run in a July cloudburst. Going to a 3x4 outlet, or adding a second drop, often fixes that for far less than upsizing the whole run. Our gutter sizing guide lays out that trade-off.
Brick fronts and low eaves
A lot of the brick bungalows here have low eaves over the front porch and a short drop to the ground. Easy ladder work. It also puts the gutter right at eye level from the sidewalk, so a sag or a crooked run is the first thing a buyer notices.
Brick under a leaking gutter shows it within a few years: white efflorescence, a dark wet stripe, mortar that sands out when you rub it with a thumb. We don't do masonry. We stop the water, and if the joints need a mason after that, we'll tell you so.
Discharge is the other half of it. A downspout that dumps at the corner of a brick bungalow sends water into the clay right where the footing meets the wall, and after enough freeze-thaw cycles that shows up as a damp basement corner or a crack in the block. A rigid extension that carries the water four feet or more out costs little and does more than most people expect. On a tight side yard, we'll route it toward the front or back where there's room for it to spread.
What lands in Bevo Mill gutters
Street trees are mixed, but pin oaks and silver maples turn up on plenty of blocks. Maple seeds drop in April and sprout wherever the trough holds water. Oak tassels follow in May and mat flat. Neither is dramatic, but together they turn a clean gutter into a planter box by midsummer.
On a hip roof with four sides of trough, that's a lot of linear feet to keep clear. It's also why guards come up in nearly every estimate conversation here.
Bevo Mill gutter questions
Is a hip roof harder to put gutter on?
Not harder, just more of it. There's trough on every wall and more corners to form and seal. That shows up in the estimate as linear feet and miter count, not as a surcharge for the roof style.
The mortar under my gutter is crumbling. Is the gutter to blame?
Often it's a big part of it. Water spilling onto brick soaks the joints, and freeze-thaw breaks them down. Get the gutter right first so fresh mortar doesn't suffer the same fate.
Can I mix 4-inch and 5-inch gutter on the same house?
Yes, if each wall is sized for the roof face above it. Not everybody likes the look, since 5-inch sits a bit taller on the fascia. We'll point out where the bigger size genuinely matters and where it's only cosmetic.
Why does only one corner of my house overflow?
Usually because that corner collects water from two roof faces while the nearest outlet sits at the far end of both runs. Resealing won't help if the water is simply coming over the front lip. An added downspout near that corner often solves it.
How many downspouts does a hip roof need?
It depends on the size of each roof face and the length of each run. Long walls often need more than one. We measure and show you the math instead of guessing.
Next to Bevo Mill
Free estimate in Bevo Mill
Tell us which corner drips or spills. We'll bring the tape and measure every roof face.
A St. Louis gutter contractor for hip-roof brick homes
Third generation of a family business started in 1947, BBB A+ rated, with free estimates and a phone that gets answered 24/7.