Painting Galvanized Gutters

Galvanized  Gutters
Galvanized metal is iron or steel that has a thin coating of zinc on it to help prevent rusting, and it is commonly used for gutters, downspouts and flashing.

New Galvanized Gutters
New galvanized metal usually has a thin, invisible film that causes paint problems. New gutters must either be aged 6 months or washed using a house cleaner (How to paint new galvanized metalleave site)

Galvanized gutters and downspouts have to be properly prepared so they don't rust. Both the downspouts and gutters need to be painted on outside, and the gutters on their insides as well. However, the gutter's trough cannot be painted with regular paint as it is not designed to be immersed in water.

Here is how I handled my gutters which were peeling badly on the outside and rusted on the inside. After researching how to prolong my gutters' life, I came up with the following steps.

1. I used my infrared paint remover to remove the old paint on the gutter's outside. The heated paint easily scraped off leaving the bare metal. I then primed the outside using two coats of a latex primer, . After priming, I used two coats of the semigloss latex paint I used on the house, Figure A.

2. Next, I used a wire brush and scraper on the inside of the gutter to remove any loose paint and rust. I then washed the inside with a house wash cleaner, Figure B.

3. The clean and dry gutter was then primed with Acrymax HP-7000 primer (See below for product information), Figure C. The Preservation Productsleave site Acrymax line of coatings is designed for roofs, but is also excellent for the insides of gutters according to their technical representative.

4. After the primer dried, the bottom of a 2-3 foot section of the gutter was coated with Acrymax HP-5000, Figure D, and a piece of reinforcing cloth placed on top of this coating, Figure E. Immediately a second coating was applied to completely saturate the reinforced cloth and to coat the rest of the gutter's inside, Figure F.

5. A final coat was applied the next day.

Product information

Preservation Products Coating Systemsleave site

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A. Gutter bottom. Left primed, right original

B. The rusted gutter

C. Primed

D. Tack coat

E. Reinforcing cloth

F. Cloth fully impregnated and the sides painted.