Fifty years of Mesa housing
Dobson Ranch was built between 1973 and 1999 on about 2,000 acres of the old Dobson cattle ranch, around a golf course and a string of small lakes, and it now holds about 5,000 homes. The oldest are 1970s block-and-stucco with shingle or low-pitched roofs, many of which have had gutters added and neglected over the decades. Alta Mesa and Superstition Springs are the 1980s and 1990s rings, mostly frame-and-stucco with concrete tile. Red Mountain Ranch and Las Sendas, along the 202 in the northeast, are 1990s and 2000s master-planned tile communities on the rising ground toward the Usery Mountains. Mountain Bridge, built by Blandford Homes from 2010 on, and Eastmark in the southeast are the newest. Across every era the builder left gutters off as standard, so the typical Mesa call is either a first installation on a tile roof or a repair on a forty-year-old system in Dobson Ranch.
Clay in the west, granite in the northeast
West and central Mesa sit on land that was farmed and flood-irrigated for generations before it was subdivided, and the soil is expansive clay: it swells when it gets wet and shrinks as it dries, which is why foundation contractors do so much business in the East Valley. Roof water dumping against the stem wall every monsoon feeds that cycle directly. The ground is also flat, so the water does not run off; it pools on the patio and works at the slab edge. Northeast Mesa is a different problem. Las Sendas and Mountain Bridge sit on decomposed granite over caliche, on hillside lots graded to shed sheet flow toward the street. There the roof water runs instead of pooling, but it runs across the yard and down the driveway, cutting channels through the gravel. In both cases the answer is a downspout at each valley with the discharge routed to where the lot was designed to drain.
East Valley monsoon storms
Monsoon season runs June 15 to September 30. Mesa's storms often build over the Superstitions and the Usery Mountains to the east and roll west across the city, so northeast Mesa usually sees the heavier totals from the same cell, and Dobson Ranch gets it a little later with more wind. A two-story Las Sendas home drops the storm at a handful of valleys in twenty or thirty minutes, and on East Valley clay that soaking-and-drying cycle is what moves a slab. That is the sizing case for 6-inch gutters with 3x4 downspouts. Mesa also has more mature trees than the North Valley, especially in the older neighborhoods, and mesquite pods and ash leaves clog a small gutter fast. A wider trough with a bigger outlet clears itself more often, and guards are worth discussing where trees hang over the roof.
Seamless gutter installation in Mesa
Mesa installs get the same 6-inch seamless aluminum gutter we hang across the Valley, roll-formed on the trailer at your house to the length of each run and fastened to the fascia with hidden hangers, under the tile edge on tile roofs. Downspouts at every valley, discharge past the patio. Colors are dark gray, bronze, white and tan; Las Sendas, Red Mountain Ranch, Eastmark and Mountain Bridge all have design review, and bronze or tan is the usual submittal. Our gutter installation page covers the sizing, the attachment detail and the price factors. Estimates are free. Read about 6-inch seamless installation and what it costs.
Gutter repair in Mesa
Mesa repair calls fit the city's age. In Dobson Ranch and Alta Mesa it is forty-year-old gutters with rusted spikes, split corners and downspouts that have parted at the elbow, sometimes with rotted fascia behind them. In the newer tile communities it is aftermarket 5-inch systems that sag and overflow at the valleys. We repair what is sound and say plainly when the gutter was never sized for the roof. Downspout and gutter repair, and the repair-or-replace test.
Neighborhoods we work in
- Dobson Ranch
- Las Sendas
- Red Mountain Ranch
- Mountain Bridge
- Eastmark
- Superstition Springs
- Alta Mesa
Services in Mesa
Google reviews
From the Google reviews
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“Blueberry did a fantastic job on my place in North Phoenix, if you need rain gutters give them a call!”
Andrew S. · Google review
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“Grant from Blueberry came out and repaired my gutter. It was a small job and those other so called “local” companies didn’t even call back. From online form to complete in less than 2 hours!”
Tim D. · Google review
Questions from Mesa
Do you really come out to Mesa from Phoenix?
Yes. Mesa is a service-area city for us rather than home turf; most of our work is in the North Valley, and we reach Mesa by the Loop 101 and the 202. The estimate is free either way, and we schedule East Valley visits so the trip does not affect what you pay.
My 1970s Dobson Ranch house has old gutters. Repair or replace?
It depends on what has failed. Backed-out spikes and dried sealant are repairable; we re-hang with hidden hangers and reseal the corners. Split corners, rusted runs or rotted fascia behind the gutter mean a seamless replacement will cost less over time than another round of patching. We tell you which on the estimate.
Will Las Sendas approve gutters on my house?
Gutters go through design review as an exterior change, and color is what the committee looks at, and we supply a sample of bronze, tan, dark gray or white for the submittal. Bronze disappears against most Las Sendas stucco tones. Get the approval in hand and the install is a normal one-day job.
Can gutters help with the foundation cracks common in Mesa?
They remove one of the causes. Mesa's clay swells when roof water soaks in against the stem wall and shrinks when it dries, and that cycle stresses the slab. Downspouts that carry the water past the foundation take the roof share out of the equation. Existing cracks are a foundation contractor's question.
