7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like many homeowners, your rain gutters aren’t something you often think about. They need regular gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their functionality is incredibly simple.
It’s not until your gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most roofs in Cincinnati. They fade into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner decided on copper or wood … materials that are definitely meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are crafted from durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of gutters is to provide a route of least resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof. When they are in good condition, your gutters will lead runoff away from the foundation and landscaping, will protect your home’s exterior from mildew and mold, the foundation and basement from leaks, and the gutters themselves from wear and rust.
When gutters 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 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 type of damage.
As soon as you identify a gutter issue, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable repairing or remedying on your own or if it’s a project you’d rather trust a gutter service for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Standing water near your home is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not directing the water runoff away from your home the way they are supposed to. Standing water can result in mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. And, it will make the areas surrounding your home constantly soggy 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 sides of your home. Mold and mildew mean there is excessive moisture in that area – a possible problem with the gutters could be to blame. Keep in mind that mildew and mold are likely to appear on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where they’re appearing, 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 Cincinnati would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You’ll need to wait until it’s raining to look for this type of 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 out. In either case, you want to have it checked right away.
Basement Leaks
Based on the construction of your basement, the leaking could be caused by any number of things. The pooling issue we mentioned before could definitely cause a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls will only keep out so much water. That’s why it is so necessary to keep your gutters in good condition!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Rain gutters empty directly onto the ground in most cases, and landscaping should be designed to work with this flow of water to help it disperse into the ground. However, a gutter leak or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool where it shouldn’t. This standing rain water can destroy plants either by force or by overwatering. It will 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 sometimes left behind even if standing water has evaporated or dissipated. You will usually see water marks under the rain gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a usually a sign that rain water is running down the outside of the gutters rather than staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The final sign of gutter damage is the simplest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they definitely have damage. Following a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your home to identify any possible damage to the roof shingles, outer walls, and rain gutters. These inspections are in addition to your routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few easy ways CIN Gutter Services recommends to 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 less problems you’ll experience with them.
The best time to clean out gutters is in the spring, but to be extra cautious, give them a good cleaning in the fall, too. Most homeowners choose to clean their gutters on their own, but there are many professional gutter cleaning companies that provide 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 – should reveal any of the signs we wrote about above.
We’d recommend that you do an exterior home inspection following each season to be sure that your gutters are functioning properly.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Fixing 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.
But, 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.