7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like most people, your rain gutters aren’t something you really worry about. They need regular gutter cleaning, but besides that, their purpose is incredibly simple.
It’s not until rain gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most roofs in Arvada. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner decided on 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 to get off your roof as fast as possible. When they’re in good condition, your gutters will direct runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, protecting 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 easy to repair to be the cause of any major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is easy and safe. If you notice any of the following signs, it’s a pretty good indication that your gutters have some kind of damage.
As soon as you notice a gutter problem, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable repairing or remedying on your own or if it’s a project you’d rather call a gutter repairman for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Sitting water is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not directing the rain runoff away from your home the way they should be. Standing water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. And, it will leave the areas around your house perpetually wet and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Mold or mildew is a bad sign, whether you see mold or mildew on the rain gutters or the exterior of your home. Mold and mildew indicate that there is too much moisture around that area – a potential problem with the gutters could be to blame. Remember that mildew and mold are likely to appear on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where these substances are appearing, it might be because that area gets very little direct sunlight. This is a scenario when the advice and expertise of a professional in Arvada would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will have to wait until it’s actually raining to find this gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that you have gutter damage. It could just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and should be cleaned out. In either case, you need to have it checked right away.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the construction of your home’s basement, the leaking could be due to any number of things. The standing water problem we mentioned earlier could definitely result in a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls will only block out so much water. That’s why it is so necessary to keep your gutters in working order!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Gutters pour directly onto the ground most of the time, and landscaping should be designed to work with this flow of water 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 shouldn’t. This water can destroy 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 a lot of moisture on a surface. Water marks are sometimes left behind even if standing water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You usually find water marks beneath the gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a typically a sign that water is pouring down the outside of the gutters and not staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The final sign of gutter damage is the easiest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they have damage. After a storm, it’s a good idea to walk around your home to identify any damage to the roof shingles, outer walls, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to your standard home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are some easy ways PRO Arvada Gutters recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least once each year. You can extend the time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out regularly. As with anything else, the better you maintain your gutters, the fewer problems you’ll have with them.
The best time to clean gutters is in the spring, but to be cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. A lot of homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are professional gutter cleaning companies that offer this service so you don’t have to handle the work or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of 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 issues we wrote about above.
We’d suggest that you do an exterior home inspection following each season to be sure that your gutters are working properly.
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 be replaced very affordably and quickly.
However, if you let the issue go on too long, you might end up making repairs in your basement, replacing expensive vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.