7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like many people, your rain gutters are not something you often worry about. They need regular gutter cleaning, but besides that, their purpose is incredibly simple.
It’s not until gutters aren’t doing what they’re supposed to that you realize how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most roofs in Rochester. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner preferred copper or wood … building materials that are meant to stand out! Most are crafted from durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of rain gutters is to provide a path of least resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof as fast as possible. When they are in good condition, your gutters will direct runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, will protect your home’s exterior from mold and mildew, the concrete and pavement and basement from leaking water, and the rain gutters themselves from rust.
When they are damaged, it can cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your house and property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too easy to fix to be the cause of major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is easy and safe. If you see any of the following issues, it’s a pretty strong clue that your gutters have some type of damage.
Once you notice a gutter issue, you can decide whether it’s something you are comfortable repairing or remedying on your own or if it’s a project you’d rather call a gutter service to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Pooling water near your home is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not directing the rain runoff away from your house the way they are designed to. Pooling water can lead to mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. And, it will make the areas surrounding your house consistently soggy and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Either one of these is a sign of gutter damage, whether you see mold or mildew on the rain gutters or on the exterior of your house. Mold and mildew indicate there is excessive moisture around that area – a possible issue with the rain gutters could be to blame. Remember that mildew and mold are more likely to grow on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where these substances are growing, it might be because that area gets very little direct sunlight. This is a time when the advice and expertise of a gutter specialist in Rochester would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will need to wait until it’s actually raining to discover this gutter issue. Hopefully this doesn’t mean you have gutter damage. It could just be that the gutter is full of debris and needs to be cleaned. In either case, you want to have it looked at right away.
Basement Leaks
Based on the construction of your home’s basement, your leak might be due to any number of things. The standing water issue we mentioned before could definitely result in a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls will only keep out so much water. That’s why it is so necessary to keep your gutters in working order!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Rain gutters pour directly onto the ground most of the time, and landscaping should be laid out to work with this water flow to help it submerge into the ground. But, a gutter leak or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool in areas where it isn’t supposed to. This pooling rain water can kill plants by force or by overwatering. It might also displace flower bed building materials like mulch or rock.
Water Marks
Water marks are the first sign that there is a lot of moisture on a surface. Water marks are sometimes left behind even if pooling water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You usually find water marks right under the gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually a sign that rain water is pouring down the outside of the gutters and not staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The last sign of gutter damage is by far the simplest to spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they definitely have damage. Following a storm, it’s a good idea to walk around your house to identify any possible damage to the roof, exterior, and rain gutters. These inspections are in addition to any routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a couple of simple ways Rochester Gutters, Inc. recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least one time a year. You can lengthen the amount of time between gutter repairs by having them cleaned out regularly. Like with anything else, the better you maintain your rain gutters, the less problems you’ll have with them.
The recommended time to clean out gutters is during the spring, but to be cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. A lot of homeowners choose to clean their gutters themselves, but there are many local gutter cleaning companies that offer this service so you don’t have to handle the mess or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of damage can often be visible from the outside of the gutters. A quick inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the issues we wrote about above.
We’d recommend that you do an exterior home inspection following each season to be sure that your gutters are working correctly.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Taking care of an issue before it becomes too bad can save you time and money. A small crack, for example, can be sealed, or the section of gutter with the crack can easily be replaced very affordably and quickly.
But, if you let the problem go on too long, you could end up making repairs in your basement, replacing expensive vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.