7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like many homeowners, your gutters are not something you often worry about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but besides that, their purpose is incredibly simple.
It’s not until your rain gutters aren’t doing what they’re supposed to that you realize just how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most homes in Holyoke. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner has opted for copper or wood … materials that are meant to stand out! Most are crafted from durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of gutters is to provide a path of least resistance for rain to get off your roof. When they’re in good condition, your rain gutters will route runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, will protect your home’s exterior from mildew and mold, the foundation and basement from leaks, and the rain gutters themselves from wear and 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 simple to fix to be the reason for major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is simple and safe. If you see any of the following signs, it’s a good clue that your rain gutters have some type of damage.
Once you find a gutter problem, you can decide whether it’s something you are comfortable repairing or remedying by yourself or if it’s something you should call a gutter specialist for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Pooling water is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not sending the rain runoff away from your house the way they are designed to. Standing water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. And, it will leave the areas around your home constantly 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 sides of your house. Mold and mildew indicate there is excessive moisture around that area – a potential problem with the rain gutters could be to blame. Remember that mildew and mold are more 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 doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight on it. This is a time where the advice and expertise of a professional in Holyoke 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 problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean you have gutter damage. It might just be that the gutter is full of debris and needs to be cleaned out. In either case, you need to have it looked at right away.
Basement Leaks
Based on the design of your home’s basement, the leaking might be caused by any number of things. The pooling issue we mentioned before could definitely lead to a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls can only block 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 in most cases, and landscaping should be designed to work with this water flow to help it disperse into the ground. However, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool 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 rock or mulch.
Water Marks
Water marks are a visible sign that there is excessive moisture on a surface. Water marks are sometimes left behind even if standing water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You will usually see water marks under the rain gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually an indication 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 simplest to spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they obviously have damage. Following a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your home to identify any damage to the roof shingles, exterior, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to any routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few simple tips NE Gutters recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least once a year. You can extend the time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out. As with anything else, the better you care for your gutters, the fewer issues you’ll experience with them.
The optimal time to clean out gutters is during the spring, but to be cautious, give them a good cleaning in the fall, too. Most homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are professional gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to deal with the work or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of gutter damage can be visible from the outside of the gutters. A fast inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – will reveal any of the signs we discussed above.
We’d recommend that you do an exterior home inspection after each season to be sure that your gutters are working correctly.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Fixing a problem before it becomes too bad can save you a lot of time and money. A small crack, for example, can be sealed, or the section of gutter with the crack can be replaced very affordably.
However, if you let the issue go on for too long, you could end up making repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire area of landscaping.