Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Gutter cleaning, repair and new gutters in Shirley, MA
Shirley gets about 43 inches of rain in a normal year, and on about 10 days a year an inch or more falls in a single day. The wettest season is fall (September to November), with about 12.0 inches; the driest is winter (December to February), with 9.1. Off a 1,000-square-foot roof, that comes to about 26,900 gallons a year for the gutters to carry.
Call (866) 228-6229 free call to a gutter contractor serving ShirleyShirley: rain and roofs
NOAA station USW00004780, 5 miBars to one scale; the longest is fall (September to November).
By heavy-rain days, Shirley falls among the fewest heavy-rain days of the 216 places in Massachusetts on this site (10.0 a year). By the age of its homes it sits 1st oldest by median year built of the 217 places in Massachusetts on this site (half built by 1938). The first frost here ranks near the middle of the 216 places in Massachusetts on this site (October 11).
When to clean gutters in Shirley
The first fall frost comes around October 11 in a typical year here, and the last spring frost around April 29 (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 Shirley rain
Gutters are sized for the worst few minutes of a storm, not for the year. In Shirley the five-minute rain expected about once in ten years falls at 6.80 inches an hour (NOAA Atlas 14 Volume 10). At that rate one 2-by-3-inch downspout drains about 1,060 square feet of roof and one 3-by-4-inch downspout about 2,120, 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.
Shirley averages about 75 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 Shirley
Half the homes in Shirley were built by 1938, 70% 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.
66% of households own their home, and 64% of homes are detached houses, 2% townhouses. Where an HOA governs the exterior, its rules on gutter color and style apply before any order is placed.
Hiring in Massachusetts
Before hiring in Shirley, ask which Massachusetts license or registration the contractor holds and for a certificate of liability insurance. Hiring a gutter contractor
Gutter work in Shirley
With half the homes built by 1938, replacement gutters and the fascia behind them come up more often here than in newer suburbs. The line takes all of it: