7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like a lot of homeowners, your gutters are not something you often worry about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their functionality is incredibly simple.
It’s not until rain gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand just how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most homes in Methuen. They blend into the exterior unless the homeowner has opted for copper or wood … building materials that are definitely meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are crafted from durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of rain gutters is to create a path of least resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof quickly. When they’re in good shape, your rain gutters will route runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, protecting your home’s exterior from mold and mildew, the foundation and basement from leaking water, and the rain gutters themselves from rust.
When they are damaged, it can cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your home and surrounding property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too simple to repair to be the cause of any major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is simple and safe. If you see any of the following issues, it’s a good clue that your rain gutters have some type of damage.
Once you notice a possible gutter problem, you can decide if it’s something you are comfortable fixing or remedying on your own or if it’s a project you’d rather call a gutter company 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 should be. Standing water can cause mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. Plus, it will make the areas around your home consistently wet and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Mold or mildew is a bad sign, whether you see mold or mildew on the gutters or the sides of your house. Mold and mildew indicate that there is a lot of moisture in that area – a possible problem with the rain gutters could be the cause. Remember that mildew and mold are more likely to appear on the north side of a house anyway, so if that’s where these substances are appearing, it may just be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight on it. This is a situation where the advice and expertise of a professional in Methuen would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will have to wait until it’s raining to find this gutter issue. Hopefully this doesn’t mean your gutters are damaged. It could just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and needs to be cleaned. Either way, you need to have it checked ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the design of your basement, your leak could be due to any number of things. The pooling problem we mentioned before could definitely result in a basement leak. Egress windows and even cinder block walls can only keep out so much water. That’s why it is so important 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. However, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool in areas where it isn’t supposed to. This standing water can kill plants either by force or by overwatering. It might also displace flower bed materials like mulch or rock.
Water Marks
Water marks are a visible sign that there is excessive moisture on a surface. Water marks are left behind even if standing water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You will usually see water marks right beneath the rain gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a typically a sign that 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 simplest to spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked, they definitely have damage. After a storm, it’s a smart 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 a couple of easy tips NE Gutters recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least once each year. You can extend the amount of time between gutter repairs by having them cleaned out. As with anything else, the better you care for your gutters, the less problems you’ll experience with them.
The best 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 on their own, but there are many local gutter cleaning companies that offer 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. Just a fast inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the problems we mentioned above.
We’d recommend that you complete an exterior home inspection at the end of each season to be sure that your gutters are functioning properly.
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.
However, if you let the issue go on for too long, you could end up needing repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.