Howell Gutters has spent more than 20 years on gutters in Aberdeen and the surrounding shore towns, and on a certain group of houses here the job carries a second set of numbers. Where a house sits inside a mapped flood hazard area, the cost of new gutters and downspouts can end up on a floodplain administrator’s worksheet alongside the roof, the siding and the windows. We write our estimates so that worksheet is easy to fill in.
That does not change how we do the work itself. Each run is sized for the roof area that drains into it, formed seamless on site from coil, and finished with downspouts whose water we trace to the ground. What changes is the paperwork: clear line items, separate pricing for new work and repairs, and a plain record of what was replaced and why.
If your house is outside the mapped area, most of this page is still useful background for buying gutters after a storm. If it is inside, it explains why the township may ask about a gutter job at all.
Gutters and the 50 Percent Rule in Aberdeen’s Flood Hazard Area
What Substantial Improvement Means for a Gutter Job
Aberdeen’s flood damage prevention provisions require projects in FEMA flood hazard areas to meet FEMA construction requirements, according to the township’s January 2013 recovery report. The trigger is substantial improvement or substantial damage: work or repair whose total cost equals or exceeds 50 percent of the building’s market value. Cross that line and the structure has to be brought up to current flood standards.
A gutter replacement is rarely the big number in that sum. It matters because it is added to everything else done on the house in the same project, and a homeowner rebuilding after a storm tends to do several things at once. New gutters, a new roof and new siding can be one project in the eyes of the floodplain administrator.
Roofing, Gutters, and Downspouts on FEMA’s List
FEMA’s Substantial Improvement/Substantial Damage Desk Reference, P-758, spells out which costs count. Under structural elements and exterior finishes, its list of costs that must be included names ‘Roofing, gutters, and downspouts’, next to windows, exterior doors, hardware and attached decks and porches. The same list includes contractor’s overhead and profit and sales taxes on materials, so the figure that counts is the full price, not just the metal.
That is why we never hand an owner in a mapped area a single lump sum. The administrator needs to see what the gutter portion is, and an estimate that buries it inside a roofing number makes that harder. A gutter job on its own is not known to force an elevation; it is one entry in a larger total, and the township does the adding.
Wind Damage Counts Too
People tend to think of substantial damage as a flood problem. FEMA’s desk reference says otherwise: the requirement ‘applies regardless of the cause of damage, such as wind or fire’, and ‘costs to repair’ covers all the work needed to restore a damaged building to its pre-damage condition. A house in the flood hazard area that loses its gutters, soffits and shingles to wind is measured by the same 50 percent rule.
Aberdeen has seen that kind of storm. On May 20, 2022, the National Weather Service in Mount Holly surveyed a brief EF-0 tornado, estimated peak wind 85 mph, that started along Line Road on the Strathmore-Hazlet border. The survey found at least a dozen homes between Sophia Drive and Carlow Way with cosmetic damage to siding, soffits, gutters and shingles, though which of those were in Aberdeen rather than Hazlet was not mapped.
Looking for gutters closer to South River? See South River Gutters.
Aberdeen’s Community Rating System Class and Flood Map
Class 8 Since 2015
Aberdeen Township entered FEMA’s Community Rating System on May 1, 2010, and has held Community Rating System Class 8 since October 1, 2015. FEMA’s Community Status Book lists that class with a 10 percent flood-insurance discount for the community. The program rewards towns that manage floodplain building more carefully than the federal minimum, and consistent substantial-improvement reviews are part of that work.
We are not insurance agents, and nothing about a gutter job earns or changes a policyholder’s rate. What we can do is keep our part of the paper trail clean, so the township’s reviews go quickly and nobody has to estimate the gutter share of a bill after the fact.
The June 20, 2018 Map
The township’s current effective flood map dates from June 20, 2018. Its first flood insurance rate map came in March 1985, and a federal hazard boundary map before that in 1975. Neighboring Matawan Borough shares the June 2018 map date but has no Community Rating System entry.
Whether a particular house falls inside the mapped flood hazard area is a question for the map and the township, not for a gutter crew. We ask early, because the answer decides how we write the estimate. If the owner does not know, the floodplain administrator can tell them before any money changes hands.
Matawan Creek, Lake Lefferts and Cliffwood
Where Sandy Did Its Worst Here
The township’s Strategic Recovery Planning Report, prepared by T&M Associates in January 2013, says Hurricane Sandy brought ‘extensive damage to Aberdeen Township from both storm surge and wind damage.’ Twenty-six properties in the township’s jurisdiction were classed as substantially damaged. Most of them were in the Cliffwood Beach area and along Matawan Creek, where properties with dock access to the creek were hit especially hard.
The same report notes that flooding isolated much of the Cliffwood section around Lakeshore Drive, Amboy Avenue and Route 35, and that the bayfront dunes were cut from ten feet to two. Two other substantially damaged properties south of the Garden State Parkway came from a house fire and a fallen tree, a reminder that the rule follows the dollar figure, not the water.
The Creek and the Dam
Matawan Creek flows north through Marlboro and Aberdeen toward Raritan Bay. Lake Lefferts is the product of the Lake Lefferts Dam, built in 1928, which captured and stored the creek’s flow upstream. During Sandy, Aberdeen Road flooded, with tides, rain and the pumping of Lake Lefferts all cited.
For gutter work along the creek, that history shapes where we send roof water. On a low lot near standing water, a downspout that empties against the foundation adds to a problem the ground already has. We follow every leader to its outlet and propose an extension, pop-up emitter or drywell where the water lands too close to the house.
Cliffwood Beach Houses
Cliffwood Beach began in 1923 as a resort community of summer bungalows, with a boardwalk in 1924 and a saltwater pool in 1929. Hurricane Donna destroyed its beachfront facilities in September 1960. Rutgers researchers describe the shoreline there as ‘increasingly vulnerable to wave overwash and erosion’, bounded by a jetty at Whale Creek and a seawall.
Older, smaller houses near the water often have fascia that has taken decades of wet weather. Before we hang anything, we check the board behind the gutter and show the owner any soft wood before replacing it. That fascia work gets its own line on the estimate too.
Itemized Gutter Estimates for the Floodplain Administrator
How We Break Out the Numbers
On a house in the flood hazard area, our estimate lists the gutter and downspout work by itself: footage of seamless .032 aluminum, number of downspouts and elbows, outlets, hangers, guards if any, and labor. New gutters and repairs sit on separate lines, partly because New Jersey taxes them differently and partly because the administrator may want to see what was restoration and what was upgrade. Sales tax and our overhead and profit are shown, since FEMA’s list counts both.
If the gutter job is part of a larger roof or siding project by another contractor, we can supply our portion so the owner can hand the township one complete set of figures. The decision about whether a project is substantial belongs to the floodplain administrator, and our job is to make the numbers easy to check.
After a Wind or Flood Event
After a storm, owners often want gutters back up fast, and that is reasonable. On a house in the mapped area, we suggest a quick call to the township first, because repair costs from wind and flood are both part of the substantial damage review. The before-and-after photos that come with every repair help document what the storm took and what we restored.
We also note anything that points to a bigger repair, such as rotted fascia, a sagging soffit or roof edge damage, without inflating the gutter line to cover it. Work belongs on the line where it happened.
Sizing and Discharge Still Come First
None of this paperwork replaces good gutter work. We size each run for the roof area draining into it, often 6-inch K-style with 3x4 downspouts on larger roof planes, and form each run seamless on site. Leader outlets are never tied into the sanitary sewer, and the estimate says where each one will discharge.
Guards are chosen for the trees on the lot rather than sold as a default. For condominium and townhome owners, we check the master deed or management office first, because in association buildings the gutters often belong to the association rather than the unit owner. Our contracts follow New Jersey’s home improvement rules, including the three-day cancellation notice.
- 20+ Years in Business
- Seamless Gutters Formed On Site
- Before-and-After Photos
