7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like many people, your gutters aren’t something you often worry about. They need regular gutter cleaning, but besides that, their functionality is incredibly simple.
It’s not until rain gutters aren’t doing what they’re supposed to that you understand just how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most roofs in Arlington. They blend into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner has opted for copper or wood … materials that are meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are crafted from durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of gutters is to provide a path of least resistance for rain 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 mold and mildew, the concrete and pavement 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 surrounding property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too easy to repair to be the cause of major home repairs! Keeping an eye on your gutters is easy and safe. If you notice any of the following signs, it’s a pretty strong clue that your rain gutters have some type of damage.
As soon as you notice a possible gutter problem, you can decide whether it’s something you are comfortable repairing or remedying by yourself or if it’s a project you’d rather trust a gutter specialist to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Sitting water is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not routing the rain runoff away from your house the way they should be. Pooling water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. And, it will make the areas around your house 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 the sides of your home. Mold and mildew mean that there is too much moisture in that area – a possible issue with the rain gutters could be the cause. Remember that mildew and mold are more likely to grow 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 on it. This is a situation when the advice and knowledge of a gutter specialist in Arlington would be a great help.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will have to wait until it’s raining to discover this type of 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. Either way, 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 standing water problem we discussed before could definitely lead to 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 good condition!
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 submerge into the ground. But, a gutter leak or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool where it isn’t supposed to. This pooling rain water can destroy plants either by force or by overwatering. It might also displace flower bed 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 pooling water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You usually find water marks right under the gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a usually a sign that rain water is streaming down the outside of the gutters rather than staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The last sign of gutter damage is by far the simplest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they have damage. Following a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your house to assess any possible damage to the roof shingles, exterior, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to your routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a couple of simple tips Arlington Gutter Service recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least one time each year. You can extend the amount of time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out. Like with anything else, the better you care for your gutters, the fewer issues you’ll experience with them.
The recommended time to clean gutters is in the spring, but to be cautious, give them a good cleaning in the fall, too. A lot of homeowners choose to clean their gutters on their own, but there are professional gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to deal with the work or the risk.
Check 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 problems we wrote about above.
We’d recommend that you complete 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. Taking care of a problem 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 easily be replaced very affordably and quickly.
But, 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 section of landscaping.