7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like a lot of homeowners, your gutters aren’t something you often worry about. They need biannual gutter cleaning, but besides that, their functionality is incredibly simple.
It’s not until your gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most roofs in Lawrence. They blend into the exterior unless the homeowner chose copper or wood … materials that are meant to stand out! Most are made of durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of gutters is to provide a route of minimal resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof quickly. When they are in good condition, your rain gutters will route runoff away from the foundation and landscaping, will protect your home’s exterior from mildew and mold, 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 simple to repair to be the cause of any major home repairs! Keeping an eye on your gutters is easy and safe. If you identify any of the following issues, it’s a good indication that your gutters have some kind of damage.
As soon as you identify a possible gutter issue, you can decide whether it’s something you are comfortable fixing or remedying by yourself or if it’s something you’d rather trust a gutter specialist to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Sitting water near your home is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not directing the rain runoff away from your house the way they should be. Pooling water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. And, it will leave the areas surrounding your home consistently soggy and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Mold or mildew is a bad sign, whether you see mold or mildew on the gutters or on the exterior of your home. Mold and mildew indicate there is a lot of moisture around that area – a possible problem with the gutters could be to blame. Remember that mold and mildew are likely to appear on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where they’re appearing, it may be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight. This is a time where the advice and knowledge of a professional in Lawrence would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will need to wait until it’s actually raining to look for this type of gutter issue. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that your gutters are damaged. It could just be that the gutter is full of debris and should be cleaned. Either way, you need to have it checked ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the construction of your basement, your leak could be caused by any number of things. The pooling problem we mentioned before could definitely lead to a basement leak. Egress windows and even cinder block walls can only keep out so much water. That’s why it is so necessary to keep your gutters in good condition!
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 disperse into the ground. However, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool in areas where it isn’t supposed to. This rain water can destroy plants by force or by overwatering. It can also displace flower bed building materials like mulch or rock.
Water Marks
Water marks are the first sign that there is too much moisture on a surface. Water marks are sometimes left behind even if pooling water has evaporated or dissipated. You will usually find water marks under the rain gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually a sign that rain water is running down the outside of the gutters and not staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The last sign of gutter damage is the simplest to spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they obviously have damage. Following a storm, it’s a good idea to walk around your house to assess any possible damage to the roof, exterior, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to any standard home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few easy tips Lawrence Gutter Service recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least once a year. You can lengthen the amount of time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out regularly. As with anything else, the better you maintain your gutters, the fewer issues you’ll experience with them.
The best time to clean gutters is during the spring, but to be extra cautious, give them a good cleaning in the fall, too. Many homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are local gutter cleaning companies that offer this service so you don’t have to deal with the mess or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of damage can often be visible from the outside of the gutters. A fast inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the issues we wrote about above.
We’d suggest that you complete an exterior home inspection at the end of each season to be sure that your gutters are functioning properly.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Fixing 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 be replaced very affordably.
But, if you let the issue go on too long, you might end up needing repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.