7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like a lot of homeowners, your gutters aren’t something you really think about. They need regular gutter cleaning, but besides that, their purpose is incredibly simple.
It’s not until gutters aren’t doing their job that you realize how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most houses in Chico. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner has opted for copper or wood … building materials that are designed to stand out! Most are made of durable yet 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 rain 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 they are damaged, it can cause 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! Keeping an eye on your gutters is simple and safe. If you notice any of the following issues, it’s a pretty strong clue that your gutters have some kind of damage.
As soon as you find a gutter problem, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable fixing or remedying by yourself or if it’s a project you’d rather hire a gutter repairman for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Pooling water near your home is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not routing the water runoff away from your house the way they should be. Standing water can cause mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. Plus, it will leave the areas surrounding your home constantly wet and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Either one of these is a sign of gutter damage, whether you see mold or mildew on the gutters or on the sides of your house. Mold and mildew indicate there is a lot of moisture around that area – a possible problem with the gutters could be the cause. Remember that mildew and mold are likely to appear on the north side of a house anyway, so if that’s where they’re appearing, it might just be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight on it. This is a scenario where the advice and expertise of a professional in Chico would be a great help.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You’ll need to wait until it’s actually raining to find this type of gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that you have gutter damage. It might just be that the gutter is full of debris and should be cleaned. In either case, you need to have it looked at ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Based on the design of your home’s basement, your leak might be caused by any number of things. The standing water problem we discussed before could definitely cause a basement leak. Egress windows and even cinder block walls can only keep out so much water. That’s why it is so important 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 disperse into the ground. However, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool where it shouldn’t. This standing water can kill plants by force or by overwatering. It might also displace flower bed materials like mulch or rock.
Water Marks
Water marks are a visible sign that there is too much moisture on a surface. Water marks are left behind even if pooling water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You usually find water marks beneath the rain gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a usually an indication that 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 spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they obviously have damage. After a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your house to identify any possible damage to the roof shingles, exterior, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to any standard home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are some easy tips Chico Gutter Service recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least one time a year. You can extend the amount of time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out. Like with anything else, the better you maintain your rain gutters, the fewer problems you’ll have with them.
The optimal time to clean gutters is in the spring, but to be extra 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 many 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 gutter damage can often 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 mentioned above.
We’d suggest that you complete an exterior home inspection after each season to confirm that your gutters are functioning 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 easily be replaced very affordably and quickly.
However, if you let the issue go on for too long, you might end up needing repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.