Storm damaged gutters in Mackay: what to do in the first hour.
Get everyone out from under any sagging or dripping ceiling and keep them out. Switch off the power at the switchboard to every room where water is near a downlight, ceiling fan or light fitting. Put a bucket down, and if the plasterboard is bulging, pierce the lowest point of the bulge with a screwdriver from arm’s length so it drains instead of dropping in one piece. Move furniture, rugs and electronics clear. Photograph the ceiling, the wall, the gutter and the ground below it before you mop anything up. Then stop: no ladder in wind or rain, no wet roof, no poking at anything near the overhead service line.
Work out how urgent it actually is before you pay for it.
Not everything that looks bad after a blow is an emergency, and not everything that looks minor is safe to leave. Find your symptom in the table, then read the urgency column before you agree to anything at after-hours rates. The figures are realistic Mackay numbers for 2026 and match our published pricing.
| What you can see | What it usually means | How urgent | Typical cost to put right |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ceiling sagging, bulging or dripping | Water is ponding on top of the plasterboard. A saturated sheet lets go without warning. | Now | Attendance $280 to $550 first hour after hours. Ceiling sheet repair $600 to $1,500 per room. |
| Gutter hanging off the fascia at one end | Brackets have pulled out of a soft or borer-eaten fascia, usually under the weight of water plus debris. | Now | Re-bracket and re-hang a run $250 to $650. Fascia repair $80 to $150 per metre. |
| Whole run peeled back or twisted after a gust | Wind load, not blockage. Usually a replacement rather than a repair, and usually an insurance event. | Now, make-safe | Make-safe $350 to $900, then replacement at $45 to $90 per lineal metre. |
| Water running backwards into the eaves | Overflow is going the wrong way, so either the gutter sits with its back edge low or the roof flashing is short. | Now | Re-set fall and flashing $350 to $900, plus ceiling and cornice repair on top. |
| Water sheeting over the front lip in every burst | Blocked gutter or a choked downpipe. Very common after the first storm following the cane crush. | This week | Clear and flush $180 to $320 single-storey, $320 to $550 two-storey. |
| Downpipe pulled off at the shoe or the stormwater | The discharge is now dumping straight against the slab edge or a timber stump. | This week | Reconnect or replace $150 to $350 per downpipe. |
| Leaf and cane trash packed hard into one corner | The gutter has become a garden bed. It holds water, breeds mosquitoes and rusts the base from the inside. | This week | Clean $180 to $550. Mesh to stop it recurring $2,100 to $3,800 on a typical house. |
| Rusted gutter finally split along the back | Corrosion, not the storm. An insurer will call this wear, and they are usually right. | Can wait | Re-gutter $3,000 to $5,500 for a typical single-storey home. |
| Water pooling in the yard, well clear of the house | Ground drainage, not roof drainage. Nothing is being damaged while it drains away. | Can wait | Nil today. Quote a downpipe extension later at $150 to $350. |
Indicative Mackay figures for 2026. Access, height and how much of the run is affected move every one of them.
What makes the damage worse while you wait.
Nearly all of the extra cost after a storm comes from the second and third downpour, not the first. Mackay averages more than 1,500mm of rain a year and most of it arrives between December and March in bursts that drop 50mm in half an hour, so the gap between the band that did the damage and the band that turns it into a ceiling replacement is often measured in hours.
- Water sitting on plasterboard. A ceiling sheet holds a surprising load before it lets go, and everything under it gets wet at once. Draining the bulge deliberately into a bucket is far cheaper than letting it collapse.
- Discharge at the footing. A detached downpipe puts hundreds of litres against one spot of slab or stump. On the reactive soils common through Ooralea and Glenella, repeated soaking and drying at one corner is what starts cornice cracking months later.
- Debris packed in the run. Storm debris compacts, then holds moisture against the gutter base. That is the exact mechanism that rusts an otherwise sound gutter from the inside out.
- A hanging gutter in the next gust. A run held on by two brackets becomes a sail. Strapping or removing it beats letting it take the fascia and a sheet of roofing with it.
Safe to do yourself, and genuinely dangerous.
Safe from the ground
- Photograph everything, including wide shots that show the whole elevation.
- Flush a single-storey gutter with a hose on a wand while standing on the ground.
- Clear the downpipe shoe and the stormwater grate at ground level.
- Move cars, bins and outdoor furniture out from under a loose run.
- Cover indoor contents you cannot move with a tarp or plastic sheet.
- Turn off the circuit to any room with water near a fitting.
Do not do this
- Ladder work in wind or rain, or on soft, saturated ground.
- Walking a wet metal roof. A Mackay roof pitch plus water is a slide, not a walk.
- Anything within reach of the overhead service line to the house.
- Pulling on a hanging gutter to straighten it. Cut edges are sharp and it will drop.
- Standing on solar panels or their frames to reach a gutter. It cracks cells and voids the panel warranty.
- Pressure washing into the roof line, which drives water back under the sheeting.
Water getting into the building right now?
Send the form with a photo of the damage and your suburb. We reply within one business day, and same day where water is entering a building.
After-hours versus Monday: the honest cost maths.
An after-hours or weekend attendance in Mackay typically costs $280 to $550 for the first hour and $120 to $180 an hour after that, plus materials. A tarp and strap make-safe usually totals $350 to $900. In normal weekday hours there is no call-out fee at all, and the same repair is quoted before anyone starts. So the after-hours premium on a small job is roughly $300 to $500.
That premium is worth paying when water is entering the building, when a run is hanging over a driveway or a path, or when the forecast has more rain before the next business day. It is not worth paying when the overflow is landing on grass, when the damage is cosmetic, or when the real fix is a replacement that has to be measured and ordered anyway. If your gutter has rusted through, no amount of overtime changes the fact that new gutter has to be rolled and delivered first.
One more piece of arithmetic before you call anyone out at all. Most north Queensland home policies carry an excess between $500 and $2,000. A $400 bracket repair paid out of pocket keeps your claims history clean and costs you less than the excess would. Our insurance claims guide and the storm damage claim page both work through where that line sits.
When it is not an emergency, and waiting saves real money.
We would rather talk you out of an overtime rate than take one off you for nothing. These are the calls we routinely tell people to leave until the weather clears.
- Overflow onto a garden or lawn. Ugly, wasteful, and completely harmless for another two days. Book a weekday clean at $180 to $320 rather than $550 tonight.
- A gutter that has always overflowed in heavy rain. If it did this last wet season too, the problem is capacity or fall, not the storm. That needs a measure and a designed fix, not a torchlight patch.
- Staining on the fascia or a rust streak. Months old. Note it, photograph it, and get it quoted with everything else.
- One blocked downpipe with three others running. The roof is still draining. Clear the shoe from the ground and book it in.
- Storm debris sitting on top of gutter guard. That is the guard doing its job. A blow-down at the next service is enough, which is the whole point of fitting mesh in the first place.
What we do not do is roof structural work, ceiling replacement, electrical work or internal water damage restoration. We make the roof line safe, stop the water at its source, and tell you plainly which other trade you need next.
What a proper make-safe includes, and what to ask for.
A make-safe is a temporary measure to stop further damage until a permanent repair can be scoped, ordered and done. On a Mackay roof that usually means strapping or removing a hanging run, tarping and battening a section of roof, clearing the blockage that caused the overflow, and getting the downpipes discharging into stormwater again. It is not the repair, and nobody should charge you for a repair while doing it.
- Ask for photographs of the damage before and after the make-safe. You will need them if you claim.
- Ask what is temporary and what is permanent, itemised separately on the invoice.
- Ask who is licensed for the work. In Queensland, gutters, downpipes and the stormwater connection are roof plumbing, and residential building work over $3,300 needs a Queensland Building and Construction Commission licensed contractor and a written contract.
- Ask for the cause in writing, not just the fix. Insurers want it, and so do buyers later if you sell.
- Ask whether the same failure will happen next storm. If the answer is yes, get the permanent fix quoted before the next band arrives.
Tell us what the storm did and get a fixed price to fix it
Send a photo and your suburb and you get a reply within one business day, same day where water is getting into the building.
Storm damage questions we get asked at the gate
Is water coming through the ceiling an emergency?
How much does an after-hours gutter call-out cost in Mackay?
Can I clear my own gutters straight after a storm?
When is storm damage to a gutter not an emergency?
Will home insurance cover a gutter torn off in a storm?
How fast can you get to storm damaged gutters in Mackay?
Once the weather clears, stop it happening again
Most storm call-outs we attend in Mackay start with a gutter that was already full. A pre-wet clean or a mesh upgrade is the cheapest insurance there is.