Serving all of Wasaga Beach
Eavestrough, soffit & fascia in Wasaga Beach
Nearly every house here is single storey, which puts the trough low, within reach of the wind, the sand and the ladder. That changes what fails and what is worth fixing.
A bungalow eave takes a different beating
On a two-storey house the trough sits above most of what could damage it. On a Wasaga bungalow it sits at head height, which is why so much of the trough here is dented, crushed at one end, or pulled loose at a corner. Ladders lean on it, branches land on it, and snow sliding off a low roof reaches it with the full weight of the pack still together rather than breaking up on the way down.
The other consequence of a single storey is run length. A bungalow often has one continuous length of trough down the whole side of the house with a single downspout at one end. That is fine in a rain shower and it is not fine in a March thaw, because the far corner is trying to move the water forty or fifty feet along a quarter inch of fall per ten feet before it reaches the only exit. It overflows at the corner, every year, and the trough is not the fault.
So the first thing we look at in Wasaga is not the metal. It is how many downspouts the house has and where they are. Adding a second downspout in the right place is the cheapest repair on this page and it solves more overflow complaints here than any amount of new trough.
Sand fills the trough and guards do not stop it
Wasaga Beach has fourteen kilometres of open sand upwind of the housing. Fine sand lifts on any strong day, lands on the roof, and washes down into the trough with the next rain. It does not float out at the downspout. It settles in the bottom of the run, holds moisture against the aluminum permanently, and slowly builds a bed that shortens the effective depth of the trough.
This is worth saying plainly because it cuts against the usual sales pitch. Micro-mesh gutter guards are excellent at leaves, keys and needles, and we install them on treed lots in Collingwood and Thornbury without hesitation. They do not stop fine sand, which passes straight through the mesh and settles underneath where you can no longer reach it. On an exposed Wasaga lot with few trees, a guard can make the trough harder to clean without solving the thing that is actually filling it.
What does work is a downspout at each end rather than one, an outlet large enough that a slug of wet sand cannot bridge it, and a flush once a year. If you have trees as well as sand, guards still earn their place. We will tell you which case your house is, and on plenty of Wasaga lots the honest answer is that you do not need guards at all.
Why the trough sags again a year later
Most Wasaga houses started as three-season cottages with narrow rafter tails and thin sub-fascia. Four decades of overflowing trough has kept that wood wet through every winter, and it is soft now behind paint or behind aluminum capping that looks fine from the driveway.
The common previous repair is a cap over the soft wood, and it is why a trough that was rehung last spring is off slope again this spring. A hidden hanger is a screw into wood. If the wood is punky, the screw holds for one season and then draws out under the first real ice load. Nothing about the trough is wrong. The thing it is hanging from has failed.
We probe the sub-fascia before quoting a rehang, and if it is gone we say so with a price for replacing it. It is a worse quote to receive than a simple rehang and it is the only one that lasts. Where the wood is sound we cap it and hang off it, and we do not replace what does not need replacing.
More for Wasaga Beach homeowners
Eavestrough in Wasaga Beach: common questions
Do I need gutter guards in Wasaga Beach? +
Less often than you would be told. Guards are for leaves, maple keys and pine needles, and much of Wasaga is open lots with very few of those. What fills trough here is wind-blown sand, and fine sand goes straight through a micro-mesh guard and settles in the bottom where it is harder to clear. If your lot is treed, guards are worth it. If it is open, spend the money on a second downspout instead.
My eavestrough was rehung last year and it is sagging again. Why? +
Almost always the sub-fascia rather than the trough. Hangers screw into the wood behind the fascia, and on a converted cottage that wood has often been wet for years and is soft. A screw into punky wood holds through the summer and lets go under the first ice load. Aluminum capping hides it, so it has to be probed rather than looked at.
Can you do the work while the cottage is rented out? +
Yes. A typical eavestrough job here is one day, and we schedule around changeovers where we can. Tell us the dates when you call. If the property sits empty over the winter, mention that too, because an overflowing trough on an unoccupied house has nobody to notice it and does its damage to the fascia unobserved.
Is 5-inch trough enough on a single-storey house? +
The roof is smaller, so the argument for 5-inch is better here than on a chalet. The run length works against it though, because a long bungalow side with one downspout has to move all of the water a long way. We usually quote 6-inch with oversized downspouts, and where 5-inch is genuinely adequate we will say so rather than upselling the coil.
Straight answers on Wasaga Beach roofs
Same-day callback across Collingwood and South Georgian Bay.