Gutters are easy to ignore until the day a corner starts pouring water down the wall. At that point the question is usually the same: what should new ones cost, and is the figure on the quote sensible? The honest starting point is that no single number fits every house. A short run on a bungalow and a long run round a three-storey detached are different jobs, even if both are called "new gutters".
What can be done is to set out what the national cost guides publish, name each one and its date, and then explain what moves a price up or down. That is what follows. Treat the figures as published ranges for the scale of the job, and not as our quote for yours.
We also cover the parts that sit behind the gutter, because new gutters hung on rotten fascia boards fail early. Whatever the house, whether a Cove semi or a detached home out towards Fleet, the fall of the run, the brackets, the fascia and the access all matter as much as the plastic or metal you choose.
What the cost guides publish
Three sources give figures that bear on a gutter job. Each one measures something slightly different, so read the caption on each row before comparing them.
| Job | Typical UK range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Replacing the guttering on a house | around £1,000 to £1,600 | MyJobQuote, Oct 2026 |
| Replacing concrete gutters | average £2,400 | MyJobQuote, Jan 2026 (an older page) |
| Fascia and soffit capping, three-bed semi | around £800 | MyJobQuote, Sep 2026 |
| Clearing all the gutters front and back | £75 to £350, ex VAT | Which?, Nov 2025 |
How to read the table
The first row is the nearest thing to "the average price for new gutters". It is a national range from a cost guide, and the guide does not say which house or which material it assumed. The concrete row is dearer because that is a different, heavier job, and the page behind it is dated earlier in 2026, so treat it as a rough marker only.
The Which? figure is for clearing, not replacing. It is quoted ex VAT, because Which? states that its prices exclude VAT. It sits in the table to show that a clean-out is a small job beside a replacement, and that a gutter which only needs clearing is not a case for new ones. With several figures in mind, check that every one covers the same job before drawing any conclusion from a difference between them.
What pushes a gutter price up or down
Gutter prices move for reasons you can see from the pavement. The same product on two houses can price very differently, so these are the points we look at on a survey.
Length and shape of the run
More length means more gutter, more brackets and more joints. Every corner, stop end and outlet is an extra fitting, and an L-shaped or stepped house has many more of them than a plain rectangle. A house with a rear extension has two eaves to deal with, and a flat-roofed extension often drains into its own gutter or outlet that needs its own downpipe.
Height and access
Gutters on a bungalow or a ground-floor extension may be reachable from a ladder or a low platform. A two-storey eaves, or a gutter above a conservatory or lean-to, usually calls for scaffolding of some kind, and the hire and the days it stands are part of the job. Narrow side passages and steep gardens slow things down as well.
Material and profile
Plastic, aluminium and cast iron differ in what they cost and how long they take to fit, and a half-round, square or deep-flow profile changes the quantity of material. A leaking cast iron run may need repair rather than replacement, which is a different price again.
What is found underneath
Rotten fascia boards, failed eaves protection or a damp rafter end only show once the old gutter comes off. A survey with photographs taken up the ladder catches much of this before the price is set, which is why we look along the eaves before we put a figure on paper.
Plastic, aluminium, cast iron or concrete
The material decides how long a run is likely to last and how it fails, so it is worth knowing the options before you compare prices.
uPVC
uPVC is the plastic most houses carry today. It is light, quick to fit and comes in a range of profiles and colours. It can sag between brackets if they are spaced too widely, and the rubber seals in the joints perish over time. A leak at a joint is often a seal or a bracket problem, not a reason to replace the whole run.
Aluminium
Aluminium does not rust, holds its shape and takes a baked-on colour finish. It can be formed on site as one length, which is the idea behind seamless aluminium guttering, so there are no joints along the run to leak. Which of the two suits a house depends on its style, how exposed the eaves are to knocks and how the owner feels about repainting.
Cast iron
Cast iron is heavy and long-lived and belongs on many older houses. It rusts from the inside, needs painting and is repaired where it can be. Where a run is still sound we would rather repair it than pull it down, and where it has cracked through we point to the crack and show you the section.
Concrete
Concrete gutters are a separate case. They are heavy, they crack and they are usually part of the building rather than hung on it, so replacing them is closer to building work. That is why MyJobQuote's average for them, £2,400 on a page dated January 2026, sits above the general range.
The fall, the brackets and the outlets
A new gutter that looks tidy can still hold water in the run if the fall is wrong. The fall is the slight slope that sends water towards the outlet. Brett Martin, a gutter manufacturer, advises "1mm for every 600mm", so a six-metre run drops by about ten millimetres from the high end to the outlet. That is barely visible, and it is the difference between a gutter that empties and one that stands full.
Brackets and spacing
Brackets carry the weight of the gutter and the water in it. If they are too far apart the run sags, and a sagging run holds water exactly where the sag is. Cheap, unsupported runs also pull away from the fascia over time. We check the bracket pattern and fixings on every run, because a well-fitted gutter with poor brackets does not last.
Outlets and downpipes
The outlet needs to sit at the right place for the roof area draining into it. Too few outlets or a downpipe too small for the roof leaves the gutter overflowing in heavy rain. BS EN 12056-3 is the standard behind the layout and sizing of roof drainage, and BSI lists it as current. That standard is for the designer, but its message for a homeowner is simple: the roof area, the number of outlets and the pipe size need to match.
A gutter handles rain through the whole year, in light showers and in downpours alike, so we judge it on how it drains and not on how it looks on the day it is fitted. The survey checks the fall on every run before a price is set, and our gutters, soffits and fascias page sets out the wider roofline work around it.
Fascias and eaves: replace or re-hang
Gutters are screwed or clipped to the fascia, the timber board carried along the eaves. If the fascia is soft, new gutters have nothing sound to hold on to. That is the single commonest reason a gutter quote grows once the old run comes down, so it pays to look at the boards at the survey stage.
Sound boards
If the fascia is solid and the old gutter has simply worn out, new gutters can be fixed straight on. That is the simplest case and the one the published range reflects best.
Boards that have started to rot
Rot usually starts where a leaking joint or a blocked gutter has kept the board wet. Capping, a uPVC cover fitted over sound boards, is one option; replacing the boards is the other. For a three-bedroom semi, MyJobQuote gives around £800 to cap the fascias and soffits (September 2026). Our guide to fascia capping against replacement explains when each makes sense,.
Older rainwater goods and asbestos
Some houses and garages have asbestos cement gutters or downpipes. HSE treats asbestos cement products, rainwater goods among them, as non-licensed work so long as the material is handled with care and not broken up. Waste from asbestos has to be bagged twice, labelled and moved with a consignment note. If your gutters could be asbestos, tell us before anyone starts, and we will test or treat them as asbestos until we know.
Scaffold, VAT and reading the quote
Three questions about a gutter quote save arguments later: does it include VAT, does it include scaffolding, and what happens if the boards behind are bad?
VAT
The standard VAT rate is 20%. Which? states that its figures exclude VAT, whereas the MyJobQuote pages do not say, so never read a MyJobQuote range as including or excluding it. Ask every roofer to state the VAT position on the quote.
Scaffolding
Scaffold is priced on the job, not read from a table. The height, the length of the run, whether the house fronts a road or stands back on private land, and how many days the work takes all set it. Scaffolding that obstructs a public highway needs a licence under the Highways Act 1980 s169, and a scaffolder who works on private land needs none. Ask who applies when you compare quotes. Our post on whether you need scaffolding to replace guttering covers the access question directly.
Getting more than one price
Citizens Advice recommends 3 or more written quotes. When they arrive, compare what each says it will do to the gutters, outlets, downpipes and boards, not just the bottom figure, and check each says whether VAT and scaffold are in. If a repair might do instead of a replacement, our gutter repair cost answer is the place to start.
