Materials Guide
Aluminum, copper and steel
Four materials turn up on Central Florida rooflines and only one of them is the default. Here is what each is good at, what it costs relative to the others, and how the climate here treats it.
Aluminum, and why it wins by default
Nearly all residential seamless gutter in Orlando is aluminum coil, and there is no mystery about why. It does not rust, it is light enough to hang without heavy support, it takes a baked-on finish that stands up to Florida UV, and critically it is soft enough to run through a roll former on the back of a truck. That last property is what makes seamless gutter possible at all.
The specification decision within aluminum is gauge. The two common residential options are .027 and .032 inches. The heavier gauge costs a little more per foot and does two useful things: it holds its shape better when a ladder rests against it, and it sags less under the weight of a trough full of wet oak litter. Neither of those is hypothetical under an Orlando canopy. On a house with mature trees over it, the step up in gauge is generally worth taking.
Finish is a baked-on coating applied to the coil before it reaches the truck, so the colour goes on flat stock at the factory rather than being sprayed on a hung gutter. It holds up well. What does vary is colour lot: two batches of the same nominal colour can differ slightly, which is why a partial replacement on one elevation will not always match perfectly in direct sun. On the same elevation, doing the whole run avoids the question.
Copper
Copper is the specification material, chosen for appearance and permanence rather than for value. It never needs repainting, it does not degrade in UV, and a copper system installed properly will outlast the roof above it several times over.
The cost is a large multiple of aluminum, and it is not only material. Copper joints are soldered rather than sealed, which is a genuine sheet metal skill and takes longer, so the labour line rises alongside the material line.
Two things about copper in this climate that people learn afterwards rather than beforehand. The first is the patina timeline: copper moves from bright through brown toward green oxide over years, and it does so faster in a humid climate than a dry one. Whether that is the point or a disappointment depends entirely on what you pictured. The second is early runoff staining. Fresh copper sheds a small amount of copper carbonate in rainwater, which discolours pale concrete, limestone and light render below the discharge point. It slows markedly once the patina establishes, but it is worth routing discharge away from pale hardscape at installation rather than scrubbing it later.
One hard constraint: copper in contact with aluminum, with water between them, sets up galvanic corrosion, and the aluminum is the metal that suffers. Where a copper system meets aluminum flashing, an isolating detail or a change of the adjacent material is required. This is standard sheet metal practice and any contractor working in copper will handle it, but it is a reason a copper job needs someone who works in copper rather than someone adding it to an aluminum quote.
Galvanised and galvalume steel
Steel gutter is stronger than aluminum and takes impact better, which is why it turns up on commercial work and occasionally on residential jobs where something has repeatedly been driven into a gutter. Galvanised steel is zinc-coated; galvalume is coated with an aluminum-zinc alloy that generally performs better against corrosion.
In a hot humid climate the honest read is that steel is a solution to a problem most Orlando houses do not have. It is heavier to hang, it rusts wherever the coating is breached including at every cut end and screw penetration, and the strength advantage rarely matters on a residential roofline. Aluminum at a heavier gauge covers most of what people are reaching for when they consider steel.
Vinyl
Vinyl gutter is sold in sections at home centres and it is fine for a shed. On a house in Central Florida it has two problems that compound. It is sectional by nature, so it carries every joint that seamless was invented to remove. And it is a polymer sitting in direct Florida sun year-round, which embrittles it: an old vinyl gutter cracks when a ladder touches it. It is the cheapest option and the one most likely to be replaced within a decade.
Profile is a separate decision from material
Worth separating, because they get conflated. K-style and half-round are profiles; aluminum, copper and steel are materials. You can have aluminum half-round, and it is frequently the right answer on a period house where the roofline wants the older profile but the budget does not want copper.
The capacity difference between profiles is real and matters here specifically. A semicircular section holds less than the near-rectangular K-style section at the same nominal width, so on a high-intensity-rainfall roofline a half-round run generally wants either a size up or an extra outlet. See the sizing guide for why that margin matters more in Orlando than in most markets.
Choosing, in one paragraph
For the large majority of Orlando houses: aluminum K-style, heavier gauge if there are trees over the roof, sized against the roof area rather than against what was there before. For a house in a historic district or with a period roofline where the appearance matters: aluminum half-round, sized up to compensate for the profile. For a house where the roofline is part of the architecture and the budget supports it: copper, with the patina and staining behaviour understood in advance. Steel and vinyl are answers to questions most residential rooflines here are not asking.