7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like most people, your gutters aren’t something you really think about. They need regular gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their purpose is very simple.
It’s not until your rain gutters aren’t doing what they’re supposed to that you understand how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most roofs in Roseville. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner decided on copper or wood … materials that are meant to stand out! Most are crafted from durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of gutters is to provide a route of least resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof quickly. When they are in good condition, your gutters will route runoff away from the foundation and landscaping, will protect your home’s exterior from mildew and mold, the concrete and pavement and basement from leaking water, and the gutters themselves from wear and rust.
When gutters 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 cause of 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 rain gutters have some type of damage.
Once you find a gutter problem, you can decide if it’s something you are comfortable fixing or remedying on your own or if it’s something you should call a gutter specialist to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Standing water is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not directing the rain runoff away from your house the way they are designed to. Pooling water can cause mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. Plus, it will make the areas around your home perpetually wet 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 exterior of your home. Mold and mildew mean there is excessive moisture around that area – a possible issue with the rain gutters could be the cause. Remember that mold and mildew are likely to appear on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where they’re appearing, it might be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight. This is a time when the advice and knowledge of a professional in Roseville would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will need to wait until it’s raining to notice this type of 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. Either way, you want to have it checked right away.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the design of your home’s basement, your leak might be due to any number of things. The pooling problem we mentioned earlier could definitely lead to a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls will only keep 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 laid out to work with this water flow to help it submerge into the ground. However, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool in areas where it isn’t supposed to. This pooling rain water can destroy plants by force or by overwatering. It can also displace flower bed building materials like rock or mulch.
Water Marks
Water marks are the first 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 will usually find water marks right under the gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually an indication that rain water is streaming 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 spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked, they definitely have damage. Following a storm, it’s a good idea to walk around your house to identify any possible damage to the roof shingles, outer walls, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to your routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are some easy ways Ready Clean Gutters recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least one time each year. You can lengthen the time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out regularly. Like with anything else, the better you maintain your gutters, the less issues you’ll have with them.
The optimal time to clean gutters is during the spring, but to be extra cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. A lot of homeowners clean their gutters on their own, but there are many local 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 gutter damage can often be visible from the outside of the gutters. Just a fast inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the problems we wrote about above.
We’d suggest that you do an exterior home inspection following 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 be replaced very affordably.
But, if you let the problem go on for too long, you might end up making repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire area of landscaping.