7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you’re like most people, your gutters are not something you often think about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their functionality is very simple.
It’s not until your rain gutters aren’t doing their job that you realize just how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most houses in Toledo. They fade into the exterior unless the homeowner decided on copper or wood … materials that are definitely meant to stand out! Most are made of durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of rain 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 direct runoff away from the home’s foundation and landscaping, will protect 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 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 simple and safe. If you notice any of the following signs, it’s a good clue that your gutters have some type of damage.
Once you find a possible gutter problem, you can decide whether it’s something you feel comfortable fixing or remedying on your own or if it’s something you should call a gutter repairman for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Standing water is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not routing the water runoff away from your home the way they are supposed to. Standing water can cause mold, weakening of your foundation, and provides the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. And, it will leave the areas around your home perpetually soggy and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Either one of these is a bad sign, 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 problem with the rain gutters could be the cause. 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 gets very little direct sunlight on it. This is a situation when the advice and expertise of a gutter specialist in Toledo would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You’ll need to wait until it’s actually raining to look for this type of gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that your gutters are damaged. It might just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and should be cleaned. In either case, you want to have it looked at right away.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the construction of your home’s basement, the leaking could be due to any number of things. The standing water problem we mentioned before could definitely cause a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls can only block out so much water. That’s why it is necessary to keep your gutters in working order!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Rain gutters empty directly onto the ground most of the time, and landscaping should be designed to work with this water flow 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 pooling water can destroy plants by force or by overwatering. It can also displace flower bed building materials like rock or mulch.
Water Marks
Water marks are the first sign that there is excessive moisture on a surface. Water marks are left behind even if pooling water has evaporated or dissipated. You will usually find water marks right under the gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a usually an indication 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 by far the easiest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked, they obviously have damage. After a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your house to identify any damage to the roof shingles, outer walls, and rain gutters. These inspections are in addition to any standard home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few easy tips TruClean Toledo Gutters recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters at least one time each year. You can lengthen the amount of time between gutter repairs by having them cleaned out. As with anything else, the better you maintain your gutters, the fewer problems you’ll experience with them.
The optimal time to clean out gutters is during the spring, but to be cautious, give them a 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. A fast inspection – with both feet firmly on the ground – will reveal any of the issues we wrote about above.
We’d suggest that you do an exterior home inspection after each season to be sure that your gutters are working the right way.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Fixing 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.
But, if you let the problem 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.