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We recently bought a house that has gutter guards installed. I noticed during heavy rain storms, water drips from the front of parts of the gutters, and ends up dripping onto the porch underneath as well. There is a gap in the soffit area that the water drips from that lines up with a darkened area on the front of the gutters.

We had a roofing person look over the roof recently who didn't see any obvious issues with it, and based on experience in past houses I'm guessing there might be a clog in the gutter, as opposed to something else causing this leak.

Does this seem likely to be an issue with the gutters, or might there be more going on here?

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  • It could be from the dormer above if not flashed properly. Other than that it would be a guess from a single picture. I would be looking at the interface from the room to the roof above.
    – Ed Beal
    Commented Jan 4, 2020 at 21:45
  • My gutters drip too, on the outside edge. I have gutter guards installed also, and I think that might be the problem. The gutters still do their job and the rain water flows properly. It's just that some of the water doesn't make it into the gutter. It's not as bad as when the gutters would get clogged with pine needles & leaves, but it's not as good as when the gutters were open (no guards).
    – SteveSh
    Commented Jan 4, 2020 at 22:25
  • And obviously, a clogged gutter of downspout would lead to water overflowing the gutter at it's lowest point. I assume you've checked for clogs?
    – SteveSh
    Commented Jan 4, 2020 at 22:26
  • @SteveSh Haven't checked for clogs yet. At this point we're still indexing issues we need to look into with the house as it is now (we just closed on the house a couple weeks ago), and trying to prioritize the order of dealing with things.
    – loppers
    Commented Jan 4, 2020 at 23:02
  • A picture from farther away may help. It looks like there is a downspout on that second floor that lines up with the stain... The water from that could be overshooting the gutter. Can't tell for sure.
    – sheetmetal85
    Commented Mar 27, 2020 at 18:14

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Drips are hard to locate: they can originate a good distance away and follow along a beam to emerge elsewhere.That said, check for clogs in the downspout. I've used a flexible plumbing snake to push though leaves. Use it hand-powered, since downspouts are much more fragile than drainpipe.

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I've seen a house do this where the first row of singles were ripped off from a storm, causing the water to dribble over the edge rather than run off into the gutter.

However, given that in your arrow on the right there is a discoloration on the gutter, my guess would be that the gutter has just been clogged for a while. If you do buy the house, consider trimming trees away from the gutters and possibly putting a gutter guard to keep debris out. This likely effects the gutters periodically throughout the year, mostly Spring and Fall.

If there is standing water in the gutter but nothing visible down the pipe, Pippik has a good suggestion.

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Embarrassing confession: Once I could finally be there during heavy rain to see what was going on, I observed that the water on the porch was not coming from any leaks. It was coming from water spilling over the gutters onto the ground, which resulted in water splashing off of the ground and railings and onto the porch from there.

We've since had the gutter system of the house totally replaced (the old gutter guards had so many problems that water was barely even making it into the gutters during heavy rain) and thus far this water problem seems to be resolved. Thanks all for the responses.

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