7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like a lot of people, your rain gutters aren’t something you often worry about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but besides that, their functionality is incredibly simple.
It’s not until your gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand just how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most homes in Worcester. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner has opted for copper or wood … materials that are designed to stand out! Most are crafted from durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of gutters is to provide a path of least resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof. When they are in good shape, your gutters will direct runoff away from the foundation and landscaping, protecting your home’s exterior from mildew and mold, the foundation and basement from leaks, and the rain gutters themselves from rust.
When gutters are damaged, it can cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your home and property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too easy to repair to be the reason for any major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is simple and safe. If you identify any of the following issues, it’s a good clue that your gutters have some kind of damage.
Once you identify a gutter issue, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable fixing or remedying by yourself or if it’s something you should trust a gutter specialist to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Pooling water near your home is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not routing the water runoff away from your home the way they are supposed to. Pooling water can cause mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. And, it will make the areas around your home consistently soggy and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Mold or mildew is a sign of gutter damage, whether you see mold or mildew on the rain gutters or the sides of your house. Mold and mildew indicate there is too much moisture around that area – a potential issue with the rain gutters could be the cause. Remember that mold and mildew are likely to appear on the north side of a house anyway, so if that’s where these substances are growing, it might be because that area gets very little direct sunlight. This is a scenario where the advice and knowledge of a gutter specialist in Worcester would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will have to wait until it’s actually raining to discover this type of gutter issue. Hopefully this doesn’t mean you have gutter damage. It could just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and needs to be cleaned. In either case, you need to have it looked at ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Based on the construction of your home’s basement, your leak could be due to any number of things. The pooling problem we discussed before could definitely lead to a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls can only keep out so much water. That’s why it is important to keep your gutters in working order!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Rain gutters empty directly onto the ground most of the time, and landscaping should be designed to work with this flow of water to help it submerge into the ground. But, a gutter leak or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool where it shouldn’t. This standing water can kill plants either by force or by overwatering. It can also displace flower bed materials like rock or mulch.
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 see water marks under the rain gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a usually a sign that water is running down the outside of the gutters rather than staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The final sign of gutter damage is by far the easiest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked, they obviously have damage. Following a storm, it’s a good idea to walk around your home to assess any damage to the roof, exterior, and rain gutters. These inspections are in addition to any standard home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few easy ways WeClean Worcester Gutters recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least one time a year. You can lengthen the amount of time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out. As with anything else, the better you care for your gutters, the less issues you’ll have with them.
The recommended time to clean gutters is during the spring, but to be extra cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. Many homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are many professional gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to deal with the mess or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of damage can be visible from the outside of the gutters. Just a quick inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the issues we mentioned above.
We’d recommend that you do an exterior home inspection at the end of each season to ensure that your gutters are working correctly.
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 could end up making repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.