7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like most homeowners, your gutters are not something you often worry about. They need biannual gutter cleaning, but besides that, their purpose is very simple.
It’s not until gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most roofs in Hoffman Estates. They blend into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner has opted for copper or wood … building materials that are definitely meant to stand out! Most home exteriors are made of durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of gutters is to create 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, protecting your home’s exterior from mold and mildew, the concrete and pavement and basement from leaks, and the gutters themselves from rust.
When they are damaged, it can lead to thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your house and property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too easy to fix to be the reason for any major home repairs! Keeping an eye on your gutters is simple and safe. If you identify any of the following signs, it’s a pretty good clue that your gutters have some kind of damage.
Once you notice a gutter problem, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable fixing or remedying by yourself or if it’s a project you’d rather hire a gutter service for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Pooling water near your home is a sure sign that your gutters or downspouts are not routing the water 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 mosquitoes. Plus, it will make the areas around your home constantly wet and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Either one of these 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 that there is excessive moisture around that area – a potential issue with the gutters could be the cause. Keep in mind that mold and mildew are likely to grow on the north side of a home anyway, so if that’s where these substances are appearing, it may be because that area doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight. This is a situation where the advice and knowledge of a gutter specialist in Hoffman Estates would be a great help.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You’ll need to wait until it’s raining to notice this gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean you have gutter damage. It might just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and needs to be cleaned. In either case, you want to have it looked at ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the construction of your home’s basement, your leak might be caused by any number of things. The standing water problem we mentioned earlier could definitely lead to a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls can only block out so much water. That’s why it is so necessary to keep your gutters in good shape!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Gutters pour directly onto the ground in most cases, and landscaping should be designed to work with this water flow to help it submerge into the ground. But, a gutter leak or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool where it isn’t supposed to. This standing rain water can destroy plants by force or by overwatering. It might also displace flower bed building 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 usually find water marks right under the rain gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a typically 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 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 damage to the roof, exterior, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to your routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few easy tips Premiere Gutter Service recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least once each year. You can lengthen the amount of time between gutter repairs by having them cleaned out regularly. Like with anything else, the better you maintain your rain gutters, the fewer issues you’ll experience with them.
The optimal time to clean gutters is in 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 themselves, but there are many 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 damage can be visible from the outside of the gutters. A quick inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – should reveal any of the problems we discussed above.
We’d recommend that you complete an exterior home inspection at the end of each season to confirm 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.
However, if you let the issue go on for too long, you might end up needing repairs in your basement, replacing expensive vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.