7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like many homeowners, your gutters aren’t something you often think about. They need biannual gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their purpose is very simple.
It’s not until your rain gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand just how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most homes in Newark. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner decided on copper or wood … building materials that are designed to stand out! Most home exteriors are crafted from durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of rain gutters is to create a route of minimal resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof quickly. When they are in good shape, your gutters will route runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, will protect your home’s exterior from mildew and mold, the foundation and basement from leaks, and the rain gutters themselves from rust.
When they are damaged, it can lead to thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your home and 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 simple and safe. If you see any of the following signs, it’s a pretty good clue that your gutters have some type of damage.
Once you identify a gutter issue, you can decide whether it’s something you are comfortable fixing or remedying by yourself or if it’s something 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 sending the rain runoff away from your house the way they are supposed to. Pooling water can lead to mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. And, it will leave the areas surrounding your house perpetually wet 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 sides of your home. Mold and mildew mean that there is a lot of moisture around that area – a possible problem with the gutters could be to blame. Remember that mildew and mold are likely to appear on the north side of a house anyway, so if that’s where these substances are growing, it may be because that area gets very little direct sunlight on it. This is a situation where the advice and expertise of a gutter specialist in Newark would be a great help.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You’ll need to wait until it’s raining to look for this gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that 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 need to have it checked ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the construction of your basement, your leak could be due to any number of things. The standing water problem we mentioned earlier could definitely cause a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls will only block out so much water. That’s why it is necessary to keep your gutters in good shape!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Gutters pour directly onto the ground in most cases, and landscaping should be laid out to work with this water flow to help it submerge into the ground. But, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool where it isn’t supposed to. This pooling 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 the first sign that there is a lot of moisture on a surface. Water marks are sometimes left behind even if pooling water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You will usually find water marks right under the gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually 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 easiest to spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked, they obviously have damage. After a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your home to assess any damage to the roof shingles, outer walls, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to any routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a couple of easy tips Newark Gutter Solutions recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least one time a year. You can lengthen the amount of time between gutter repairs by having them cleaned out regularly. As with anything else, the better you maintain your rain gutters, the less issues you’ll experience with them.
The optimal time to clean gutters is during 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 themselves, but there are many local gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to handle the work or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of damage can often be visible from the outside of the gutters. A quick inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the signs we mentioned 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 easily be replaced very affordably and quickly.
But, if you let the issue go on too long, you might end up needing repairs in your basement, replacing expensive vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.