7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like a lot of people, your gutters are not something you really think about. They need biannual gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their functionality is incredibly simple.
It’s not until your gutters aren’t doing what they’re supposed to that you understand just how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most homes in Frederick. They blend into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner chose copper or wood … materials that are meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are made of durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of gutters is to create a route of least resistance for rain to get off your roof as fast as possible. When they’re in good condition, your rain gutters will lead runoff away from the home’s 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 they are damaged, it can lead to thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your home and surrounding property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too simple to fix to be the reason for major home repairs! Keeping an eye on your gutters is easy and safe. If you identify any of the following issues, 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 by yourself or if it’s a project you should trust a gutter repairman to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Sitting water near your home is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not sending the rain runoff away from your home the way they are supposed to. Standing 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 home constantly wet and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Mold or mildew is a sign of gutter damage, whether you see mold or mildew on the gutters or the exterior of your home. Mold and mildew mean that there is too much moisture in that area – a possible issue with the gutters could be to blame. Keep in mind that mold and mildew are more likely to appear on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where these substances are growing, it might just be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight on it. This is a scenario when the advice and expertise of a gutter specialist in Frederick would be a great help.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You’ll have to wait until it’s raining to find this gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that your gutters are damaged. It could just be that the gutter is full of debris and needs to be cleaned out. In either case, you want to have it looked at ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the design of your basement, your leak might be due to any number of things. The standing water problem we discussed before could definitely result in a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls can only keep 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 most of the time, and landscaping should be designed to work with this water flow to help it disperse into the ground. However, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool where it shouldn’t. This pooling rain water can destroy plants either by force or by overwatering. It might also displace flower bed materials like mulch or rock.
Water Marks
Water marks are the first sign that there is a lot of 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 right under the rain gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a typically a sign that water is running 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 in the middle, they have damage. After a storm, it’s a good idea to walk around your house to identify any possible damage to the roof, exterior, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to any standard home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few simple ways Gutter & Exterior Experts 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. Like with anything else, the better you maintain your rain gutters, the less issues you’ll have with them.
The best time to clean out gutters is during the spring, but to be extra cautious, give them a good cleaning in the fall, too. Most homeowners clean their gutters on their own, but there are local gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to deal with the mess or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of gutter damage can be visible from the outside of the gutters. A quick inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – will reveal any of the problems we wrote about above.
We’d recommend that you do 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. 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 problem go on for too long, you could end up making repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.