What Gauge Aluminum Is Best For Eavestroughs

There are basically 3 main thicknesses of aluminum that are used for eavestrough:

1. .023 of an inch which is most commonly used as it has the widest colour selection and can hold up to most residential applications. It is available in about 35 different colours from our supplier.

2. .027 of an inch which is slightly thicker than the .023 and is available in about 15 colours from our supplier.

3. 0.32 of an inch which is the thickest aluminum that our seamless machines can form. It is available in about 15 colours as well. This heavy gauge is commonly used for the larger 6 inch eavestrough but we have this coil slit down to fit in our 5 inch machines.

We can check the thickness of our heavy gauge .032 aluminum using a digital caliper as shown below:

Any eavestrough company that works with a good supplier of aluminum will be able to provide all these thicknesses of aluminum coil. Our standard .023 gauge eavestrough is our most common thickness on most residential applications. We do recommend the .032 thickness for houses that have snow slides which often happen with slippery steel roofs. If you are thinking of getting a steel roof make sure you plan for snow guards all the way around the home if possible to keep the snow from sliding off and damaging your eavestroughs.

A very important factor for creating a strong eavestrough is to use a quality fastener (bracket) with a space between fasteners of no more then 24 inches. To make an eavestrough stronger simply install the brackets closer together like about 12 or 16 inches apart and there will be much more resistance to ice build up and ladder damage.

See a quality hanger with a large deep screw that will not come loose from the wood fascia:

The standard .023 thickness is more than strong enough for most applications when installed properly. The cost to upgrade to the .032  heavy gauge eavestrough will add about 2 to 3 dollars per foot installed.

A great way to upgrade the strength of any gauge eavestrough is to add a leafguard/bracket system like the T-Rex. It comes in 8 foot long pieces and snaps into the eavestrough before the eavestroughs are secured on the home.

Check out our video of us testing out our standard gauge .023 eavestrough and T-Rex leafguard on a Toronto home