Polk County, Iowa
Gutter cleaning, repair and new gutters in Des Moines, IA
A normal year in Des Moines brings about 37 inches of rain; on roughly 9 of its days, an inch or more comes down at once. The wettest season is summer (June to August), with about 13.3 inches; the driest is winter (December to February), with 4.0. Off a 1,000-square-foot roof, that comes to about 22,700 gallons a year for the gutters to carry.
Call (866) 228-6229 free call to a gutter contractor serving Des MoinesDes Moines: rain and roofs
NOAA station USW00014933, 3 miBars to one scale; the longest is summer (June to August).
By heavy-rain days, Des Moines falls near the middle of the 290 places in Iowa on this site (8.8 a year). Its housing ranks near the middle of the 290 places in Iowa on this site (half built by 1960). The first frost here ranks among the latest for the first fall frost of the 290 places in Iowa on this site (October 20).
When to clean gutters in Des Moines
The first fall frost comes around October 20 in a typical year here, and the last spring frost around April 18 (median dates, NOAA normals). A fall cleaning set for the weeks after that frost, when the branches over the house are bare, gets the year’s leaves in one trip; a spring visit follows once the pollen and catkins have come down.
When to clean gutters explains how the trees over a roof change the schedule.
Gutter and downspout size for Des Moines rain
Gutters are sized for the worst few minutes of a storm, not for the year. In Des Moines the five-minute rain expected about once in ten years falls at 7.92 inches an hour (NOAA Atlas 14 Volume 8). At that rate one 2-by-3-inch downspout drains about 910 square feet of roof and one 3-by-4-inch downspout about 1,820, by the rule in the Copper Development Association’s design handbook. Try your own roof in the gutter and downspout calculator, which starts from this figure.
Des Moines averages about 37 inches of snow a year (NOAA normals). Snow on a roof brings ice dams: heat escaping from the house melts the snow, and the water refreezes at the cold eave, in the gutter and over it. University of Minnesota Extension puts the cause in the attic, not in the gutter, so a gutter that fills with ice is a symptom; hangers spaced to carry ice and a sound fascia are what the gutter itself needs.
The houses in Des Moines
Half the homes in Des Moines were built by 1960, 72% before 1980 (ACS 2020–2024). At that age a gutter has seen decades of leaves and storms, and the fascia it hangs from has too. On a house built before 1978, replacing more than 20 square feet of painted fascia or trim falls under the EPA’s lead-safe rule, so ask whether the crew is certified.
60% of households own their home, and 62% of homes are detached houses, 4% townhouses. Where an HOA governs the exterior, its rules on gutter color and style apply before any order is placed.
Hiring in Iowa
Before hiring in Des Moines, ask which Iowa license or registration the contractor holds and for a certificate of liability insurance. Hiring a gutter contractor
Gutter work in Des Moines
With half the homes built by 1960, replacement gutters and the fascia behind them come up more often here than in newer suburbs. The line takes all of it: