7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like a lot of homeowners, your gutters are not something you really think about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but besides that, their purpose is very simple.
It’s not until your rain gutters aren’t doing their job that you understand how important they are!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go virtually unnoticed on most houses in Corvallis. They fade into the exterior unless the homeowner decided on copper or wood … materials that are designed to stand out! Most home exteriors are made of durable yet lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The point of rain gutters is to create a route of least resistance for rain to get off your roof quickly. When they are in good shape, your rain gutters will lead runoff away from the home’s 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 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 repair to be the cause of any major home repairs! Keeping an eye on your gutters is simple and safe. If you see any of the following issues, it’s a pretty strong indication that your rain gutters have some kind of damage.
As soon as you identify a possible gutter issue, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable repairing or remedying by yourself or if it’s a project you should hire a gutter repairman to handle.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Standing water is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not sending the rain runoff away from your house the way they should be. Pooling water can cause mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. Plus, it will leave the areas around your house consistently 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 sides of your home. Mold and mildew mean there is a lot of moisture around that area – a potential issue with the gutters could be to blame. Keep in mind that mildew and mold are likely to grow on the north side of a house 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 where the advice and expertise of a professional in Corvallis would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will have to wait until it’s actually raining to look for this type of gutter problem. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that you have gutter damage. It might just be that the gutter is clogged with debris and should be cleaned. Either way, 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 issue we mentioned earlier could definitely result in a basement leak. Egress windows and cinder block walls will only block out so much water. That’s why it is so necessary to keep your gutters in working order!
Landscaping or Lawn Damage
Rain gutters pour 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 gutter leak or clogged gutter will cause rainfall to overflow or pool where it isn’t supposed to. This water can kill plants 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 pooling water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You usually see water marks under the rain gutters or behind the downspouts. This is a usually a sign that rain water is pouring 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 simplest to spot. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they definitely have damage. After a storm, it’s a smart idea to walk around your home to assess any possible damage to the roof shingles, outer walls, and gutters. These inspections are in addition to any routine home inspections.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR GUTTERS?
Here are a few easy tips Clear & Clean Gutters of Corvallis recommends to help prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least once each year. You can extend the time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out. Like with anything else, the better you care for your gutters, the fewer issues you’ll have with them.
The recommended time to clean out gutters is in the spring, but to be cautious, give them a cleaning in the fall, too. Most homeowners 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.
Check 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 issues we wrote about above.
We’d suggest that you do an exterior home inspection following each season to confirm that your gutters are working the right way.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Fixing a problem 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 and quickly.
However, if you let the issue go on for too long, you could end up making repairs in your basement, replacing vinyl siding or redoing an entire section of landscaping.