Do you have a basement? Are you concerned about water intrusion? Do you get a lot of rain? Do you get any snow? Do you plan on having any landscaping next to your house?

If you don't put gutters and you live in a cold climate, you'll get a nice skating rink on your driveway, at least in front of the 3rd stall and your man door. If you put any landscaping along your house, it will get dumped on (and potentially ruined) by runoff. If you have a basement and do not move the water on your roof away from your house, you may end up with water in your basement.

In the grand scheme of building a home, gutters are a drop in the bucket. While it isn't NOTHING, it's not going to blow anyone's budget. If none of the things I listed above are an issue for you, then you don't need gutters. If they are, then you might want to consider them.

Where do you live, what is the climate. Here in coastal washington, a house without gutters and downspouts is about as well planned as a truck without tires....

Wisconsin

So you have a basement? And you obviously have snow.

I would put gutters. We live in MN and just put them on our new house. We lived 2 months without them and it was bad. Even though we salted and tried to stay on top of the ice, our driveway was treacherous. We had 3" of buildup in front of our 3rd stall (similar roof to yours).

Put drain tile under your sidewalk so you aren't dumping water right where people will be walking. Our builder (thankfully) did this for us.

I would get gutters absolutely.

Yes to gutters.

Do you NEED gutters now? No. Do you really really want gutters? Absolutely. While you could get away without it, at least for a little while... at some point you do indeed want/need to direct the water off your roof to other than the drip and run off line. And also direct off melt from snow- this also helps prevent snow damming damage.

So you might be able to get by for a while without to try to ride out prices a bit, or not depending on how the roofs drain off onto your land and how much snow you get. And how you address drain off otherwise. But eventually you will rue not having gutters if you don't get them.

If you don't want to do gutters this year. You still would want to invest in some water control. Things like rain chains, catchments to catch and drains to direct catchments off. That can be a cost trade off with just getting gutters proper.

What is your contractor putting forward for gutter options? I know there are different materials out there with various prices points.

Some of my dear friends live in MN on a lake. (They moved out of their family home to their lake house full time about 3 years ago.) Once while at their house we had a torrential rainstorm, and rain was pouring off the roof outside the windows where we were having dinner. I asked about gutters and my friend said they're not common there! I was amazed because as a Midwesterner I've always had them. Personally, I'd add them since you're building new. You'll want to manage water run-off away from your house.

He surely wasn’t serious. Of course you need gutters. ASAP.

You do want gutters, but we have swapped some downspouts for rainchains and rain barrels. I use the rainbarrel water all summer long to water our flower pots.

Gutters, downspouts and extension.

tj

Gutters 100% and downspouts that lead away from the house. You will have a muddy moat around your house every time it rains without them. Not to mention water issues in your basement.

Yes, you need both gutters and downspurts to manage the rain and protect your expensive home.

@chicagoans We have gutters on our MN lake home, and question the “not common here” statement.

Is the soil on your site expansive? Is there a high clay content in your soil?

If so, you will definitely want gutters and downspouts to keep the water from sheeting along your foundation, expanding the soil and the potential for movement and cracking of the foundation and all that it supports.

In that case you will also want to ensure that finish grading is such that all surface water and drainage is directed away from your foundations.

@Mstein009: just repeating what I heard. As I said, I was surprised, and I'd want gutters! For awhile I was hoping to buy near them, and was planning to add gutters etc. to my list of things to watch for. Always took it for granted here.

The builder said that our basement is fully water proof and the back of the house is on a large slop. He said that the water will run down the slope.

Considering that MN is land of 10,000 lakes, there might be some lakes that are into gutters and some that are not so much.

The two obvious areas of concern are in front of the garage door on the left (two roofs draining that way) and between the garage and the front door (three roofs draining there). It is not just rain but also snow melt all winter and forming ice sheets when it refreezes….especially by that door by the garage where water will funnel down in front of it.

tj

The reason to not have gutters is to avoid frequent leaf removal but that doesn't appear to be a concern for your site.

If you omit them, you will need a crushed stone bed around your house to minimize rainwater and mud splashing back on the foundation and siding and making a groove in the earth under the drip line.

An important thing to remember is to install the gutters low enough that ice sliding from the roof will not damage them. Your facia boards may not be tall enough for that.

As for waterproofing no one can know if its adequately protected without knowing the wall material and if there's a perimeter footing drain and a drainage membrane on the wall and the specification for the waterproofing material. We can't rely on the the contractor's opinion..

You don't need gutters and downspouts.

And Joseph, if she has expansive soils, and they contract and expand, as the soil dries and wets, how will she stop the heaving and movement of her foundation, followed by cracking of floors and walls?

Maybe you'll come out and fix things for her?

There are certainly situations where gutters are not essential. You can do ground level treatment even if the setting of expansive soils. Heck, my gutters are pretty jammed up most of the time and life goes on....

My husband was a builder and he really worked to talk clients into gutters. There are many reasons listed above that are valid such as ice forming where the roof drains to the front and isssues with plantings. If your part of Wisconsin is like mine with high clay soils, you will definitely want to move water away from the foundation. Another consideration is that you will have a fair amount of water splashing against the house from water draining directly off the roof and splashing back up when the water hits the ground.

If there is a hill behind the building such that no water will gather along the back foundations, and it all will flow away, then the main thing you will have to be concerned with is erosion on the hill until you have plants growing well enough that there isn’t soil washing away. Erosion (along with splashback) may be enough of a reason to want gutters and thoughtfully placed downspouts on the back of the house as well.

We didn’t initially install gutters on our mountain home (because 3 feet of snow sliding off would just rip them off) - but after the first winter of an ice skating rink on our driveway, we put in two gutters - one over the garage (where the pitch of the roof wasn’t as steep) and on the covered patio - the dripping caused an ice “berm”….

Minimal cost aside, I can't think of a single reason gutters would be bad, but a lot of reasons that gutters would be necessary. What percentage of other homes in your region have gutters? Is your builder going to give you a written lifetime warranty on water intrusion?

Do consider water storage for watering the garden. They will more than pay for themselves over time if you are on city water. If you have well water, it will cut down on the amount of wear on the pump. (If your well water is filtered through a softener like salt, your garden and wallet will both thank you.)

The main downside to no gutters is splatter. and a drip line. A depression will form where the water falls from the roof edges and soil will splatter onto the walls of the house. I grew up in an area where termites were the problem and houses that survived were on foundations that placed the lowest wood at least 18 to 24 inches above the soil. Some old farm houses were on foundations 3 ft above the soil. Those houses could make do without gutters. The foundations were tall enough to keep the splatter away from the wood. Splatter can happen without rain when there is drips from heavy dew and melting frost. Its important to keep the wood dry for long structural life. Adding a gravel strip along the drip line will control erosion and reduce soil transfer to the building walls.

Old farm-houses added gutters to collect and direct rain water into a cistern for household use. That;s not needed in today's home sites. Those old sites did not have electrical power.

So, do you need gutters? It depends and there are many factors to consider. If your overhang is only 6 inches, you need gutters. A large overhang of 2 ft or more can aid a no-gutter build. If you do add gutters, its best to install those before the roofing shingles are laid. Good gutters have flashing that extends up the roof and under the shingles.