7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like most people, your rain gutters aren’t 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 realize just how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most roofs in Hammond. They fade into the exterior unless the homeowner chose copper or wood … materials that are meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are made of durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of gutters is to provide a path of minimal resistance for rain to get off your roof as fast as possible. When they are in good shape, your gutters will route runoff away from the 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 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 any major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is easy and safe. If you see any of the following signs, it’s a pretty good clue that your rain gutters have some kind of damage.
As soon as you identify a possible gutter problem, you can decide whether it’s something you feel comfortable repairing or remedying on your own or if it’s something you should trust a gutter company for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Pooling water 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. Standing water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. Plus, it will make the areas surrounding your home consistently 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 on the exterior of your home. Mold and mildew mean there is a lot of moisture around that area – a possible problem with the rain gutters could be to blame. Remember that mold and mildew are likely to grow on the north side of a house anyway, so if that’s where they’re growing, it might be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight. This is a time where the advice and expertise of a professional in Hammond would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You’ll need to wait until it’s raining to find this type of gutter issue. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that you have gutter damage. It could just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and should be cleaned out. In either case, you want to have it checked right away.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the design of your home’s basement, the leaking could be caused by any number of things. The pooling issue we discussed earlier could definitely cause a basement leak. Egress windows and even cinder block walls will only keep out so much water. That’s why it is important to keep your gutters in working order!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Gutters empty directly onto the ground most of the time, and landscaping should be laid out to work with this water flow to help it disperse into the ground. However, a gutter leak or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool in areas where it isn’t supposed to. This standing rain water can destroy plants either by force or by overwatering. It can also displace flower bed materials like rock or mulch.
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 standing water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You will usually see water marks right beneath the rain gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually 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 simplest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked, they obviously have damage. Following a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your house to identify any possible damage to the roof shingles, 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 Hammond Gutters & More! recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least one time each year. You can lengthen the time between gutter repairs by having them cleaned out. Like with anything else, the better you care for your gutters, the less problems you’ll have with them.
The recommended time to clean gutters is during the spring, but to be cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. A lot of homeowners clean their gutters themselves, but there are professional gutter cleaning companies that offer this service so you don’t have to deal with the work or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of gutter 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 signs we wrote about above.
We’d recommend that you do an exterior home inspection at the end of each season to ensure that your gutters are functioning the right way.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Taking care of an issue 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.
However, if you let the problem go on for too long, you might end up making repairs in your basement, replacing expensive vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.