7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like a lot of people, your gutters are not something you often think about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their purpose is incredibly simple.
It’s not until your gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most houses in Waldorf. They fade into the exterior unless the homeowner has opted for copper or wood … building materials that are meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are made of durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of rain gutters is to create a path of least resistance for rain to get off your roof. When they’re in good condition, your gutters will direct runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, protecting your home’s exterior from mildew and mold, the foundation 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 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 clue that your rain gutters have some type of damage.
Once you find a gutter issue, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable repairing or remedying by yourself or if it’s something you should call a gutter service for.
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 supposed to. Standing water can lead to mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. And, it will make the areas surrounding your house consistently 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 sides of your house. Mold and mildew indicate there is excessive moisture around that area – a potential problem with the rain gutters could be the cause. Remember that mildew and mold are likely to grow on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where these substances are growing, it may be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight on it. This is a situation where the advice and knowledge of a professional in Waldorf would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will need to wait until it’s actually raining to find this gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean your gutters are damaged. It could just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and should be cleaned. In either case, you want to have it checked ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Based on the construction of your home’s basement, the leaking could be caused by any number of things. The standing water issue we discussed earlier could definitely lead to a basement leak. Egress windows and even 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
Rain gutters empty directly onto the ground most of the time, and landscaping should be laid out to work with this flow of water to help it submerge into the ground. But, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool in areas where it isn’t supposed to. This standing rain water can destroy plants by force or by overwatering. It can also displace flower bed materials like mulch or rock.
Water Marks
Water marks are the first sign that there is too much 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 beneath the gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a typically an indication that rain water is streaming down the outside of the gutters and not staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The final sign of gutter damage is the easiest to spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they obviously have damage. Following a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your house to assess any 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 couple of simple ways WeClean Waldorf Gutters recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least one time a year. You can extend the time between gutter repairs by having them cleaned out regularly. Like with anything else, the better you care for your gutters, the fewer problems you’ll have with them.
The recommended time to clean out gutters is in the spring, but to be extra cautious, give them a good cleaning in the fall, too. A lot of homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are professional gutter cleaning companies that provide this service so you don’t have to handle the mess or the risk.
Check your gutters often. Signs of damage can be visible from the outside of the gutters. Just a quick inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – will reveal any of the problems we mentioned above.
We’d recommend that you do an exterior home inspection following each season to be sure that your gutters are working properly.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Taking care of 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.
However, if you let the issue 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.