Webster County, Iowa
Gutter cleaning, repair and new gutters in Fort Dodge, IA
Fort Dodge gets about 35 inches of rain in a normal year, and on about 8 days a year an inch or more falls in a single day. The wettest season is summer (June to August), with about 14.0 inches; the driest is winter (December to February), with 3.6. That is about 21,800 gallons a year off each 1,000 square feet of roof, every drop of it through a gutter and a downspout.
Call (866) 228-6229 free call to a gutter contractor serving Fort DodgeFort Dodge: rain and roofs
NOAA station USC00132999, 5 miBars to one scale; the longest is summer (June to August).
Counting days with an inch of rain or more, Fort Dodge sits among the fewest heavy-rain days of the 290 places in Iowa on this site (8.3 a year). By house age it falls 69th oldest by median year built of the 290 places in Iowa on this site (half built by 1956). By its first fall frost it sits near the middle of the 290 places in Iowa on this site (October 8).
When to clean gutters in Fort Dodge
The first fall frost comes around October 8 in a typical year here, and the last spring frost around April 28 (median dates, NOAA normals). Booking the fall cleaning after the first frost, once the trees over the roof are bare, catches the season’s drop in one visit; the spring cleaning comes after the pollen and catkins are down.
When to clean gutters explains how the trees over a roof change the schedule.
Gutter and downspout size for Fort Dodge rain
What overwhelms a gutter is a burst, not a season. In Fort Dodge the five-minute rain expected about once in ten years falls at 8.21 inches an hour (NOAA Atlas 14 Volume 8). At that rate one 2-by-3-inch downspout drains about 880 square feet of roof and one 3-by-4-inch downspout about 1,750, 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.
Fort Dodge averages about 39 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 Fort Dodge
Half the homes in Fort Dodge were built by 1956, 80% before 1980 (ACS 2020–2024). In a neighborhood that age, many houses are on their second set of gutters or due for one, and the fascia board behind them is worth checking at the same visit. 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.
64% of households own their home, and 70% of homes are detached houses, 2% townhouses. In a townhouse or HOA community, check who owns the gutters and what colors are allowed before booking.
Hiring in Iowa
Ask any contractor working in Fort Dodge what Iowa requires of them for gutter work, and to show proof of insurance. Hiring a gutter contractor
Gutter work in Fort Dodge
With half the homes built by 1956, replacement gutters and the fascia behind them come up more often here than in newer suburbs. The line takes all of it: