7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like a lot of people, your rain gutters are not something you often think about. They need regular gutter cleaning, but besides that, their purpose is incredibly simple.
It’s not until your rain 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 houses in Gaithersburg. They blend into the exterior unless the homeowner preferred copper or wood … materials that are definitely meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are made of durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of rain gutters is to provide a path of least resistance for rain to get off your roof quickly. When they are in good condition, your gutters will route runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, protecting your home’s exterior from mold and mildew, the foundation and basement from leaking water, and the gutters themselves from rust.
When gutters are damaged, it can lead to thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your house and surrounding property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too easy to fix to be the cause of any major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is easy and safe. If you see any of the following issues, it’s a pretty good clue that your gutters have some type of damage.
As soon as you notice a possible gutter problem, you can decide if it’s something you are comfortable fixing or remedying on your own or if it’s a project you should call a gutter repairman to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Standing water is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not routing the rain runoff away from your house the way they are supposed to. Standing water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. And, it will make the areas surrounding your home consistently soggy and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Either one of these is a bad sign, whether you see mold or mildew on the gutters or on the exterior of your house. Mold and mildew indicate there is excessive moisture in that area – a potential issue with the rain gutters could be to blame. Remember that mildew and mold are likely to grow on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where they’re appearing, it might be because that area gets very little direct sunlight. This is a situation when the advice and expertise of a professional in Gaithersburg would be a great help.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will have to wait until it’s raining to look for 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 out. Either way, you need to have it checked ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the design of your basement, the leaking could be caused by any number of things. The pooling issue we discussed 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 necessary to keep your gutters in good shape!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Rain gutters empty directly onto the ground most of the time, and landscaping should be laid out to work with this flow of water to help it disperse into the ground. However, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool where it shouldn’t. This water can kill plants either by force or by overwatering. It will 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 left behind even if standing water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You will usually find water marks under the rain gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a typically 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 the simplest 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 house to identify any damage to the roof shingles, outer walls, and rain gutters. These inspections are in addition to your routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a couple of simple tips Gaithersburg 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 having them cleaned out. Like with anything else, the better you maintain your gutters, the less problems you’ll experience with them.
The best time to clean out gutters is in the spring, but to be extra cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. A lot of homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are many professional gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to handle the mess or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of gutter damage can be visible from the outside of the gutters. Just a fast inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – will reveal any of the problems we wrote about above.
We’d recommend that you complete an exterior home inspection after each season to be sure that your gutters are working the right way.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Fixing an issue 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.
But, if you let the issue go on for too long, you might end up needing repairs in your basement, replacing expensive vinyl siding or redoing an entire area of landscaping.