7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like a lot of people, your gutters aren’t something you often think about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their purpose is very simple.
It’s not until rain gutters aren’t doing their job that you realize just how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most homes in Scranton. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner preferred copper or wood … building materials that are meant to stand out! Most are made of durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of gutters is to provide a route of least resistance for rain to get off your roof as fast as possible. When they are in good condition, your rain gutters will route runoff away from the foundation and landscaping, protecting your home’s exterior from mold and mildew, the concrete and pavement 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 simple to fix to be the cause of any major home repairs! Keeping an eye on your gutters is simple and safe. If you identify any of the following issues, it’s a pretty strong indication that your gutters have some type of damage.
As soon as you identify a gutter issue, you can decide if it’s something you are comfortable fixing or remedying by yourself or if it’s a project you’d rather trust a gutter service for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Sitting water near your home is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not sending the water runoff away from your home the way they are supposed to. Standing water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. And, it will leave the areas surrounding your house constantly soggy and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Either one of these is a bad sign, whether you see mold or mildew on the rain gutters or on the exterior of your house. Mold and mildew mean that there is too much moisture around that area – a potential problem with the rain gutters could be to blame. Keep in mind that mold and mildew are likely to appear on the north side of a house anyway, so if that’s where these substances are appearing, it might be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight on it. This is a time where the advice and knowledge of a professional in Scranton would be a great help.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will have to wait until it’s actually raining to discover this gutter issue. Hopefully this doesn’t mean you have gutter damage. It might just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and needs to be cleaned out. In either case, you want to have it looked at ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the construction of your basement, your leak might be due to any number of things. The pooling problem we discussed earlier 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 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 gutter leak or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool where it shouldn’t. This standing rain water can kill plants either by force or by overwatering. It can also displace flower bed building materials like mulch or rock.
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 usually see water marks beneath the gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually a sign that 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 by far the simplest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked, they definitely have damage. After a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your home to assess any possible damage to the roof, exterior, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to any routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are some simple ways Scranton Gutter Service recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least one time a year. You can lengthen the amount of time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out regularly. Like with anything else, the better you maintain your gutters, the fewer issues you’ll experience with them.
The optimal time to clean gutters is during the spring, but to be cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. Many homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are local gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to deal with the mess or the risk.
Check your gutters often. Signs of damage can often be visible from the outside of the gutters. A fast inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the signs we discussed above.
We’d suggest that you complete an exterior home inspection after each season to confirm that your gutters are functioning 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 problem go on for too long, you could end up making repairs in your basement, replacing expensive vinyl siding or redoing an entire area of landscaping.