7 Signs of Gutter Damage on Your Home
If you are like many homeowners, your gutters are not something you often think about. They need routine gutter cleaning, but otherwise, their purpose is very simple.
It’s not until your rain gutters aren’t doing what they’re supposed to that you understand how important they are for your home!
WHAT DO GUTTERS DO?
Gutters and downspouts go unnoticed on most roofs in East Lansing. They blend into the home’s exterior unless the homeowner chose copper or wood … materials that are meant to stand out! Most are crafted from durable but lightweight aluminum or vinyl siding.
The purpose of gutters is to create a route of minimal resistance for rain and snow to get off your roof as fast as possible. When they’re in good condition, your gutters will direct 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 rain gutters themselves from rust.
When gutters are damaged, it can cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to your house and surrounding property.
ARE YOUR GUTTERS DAMAGED?
Gutter damage is too simple to repair to be the cause of any major home repairs! Inspecting your gutters is simple and safe. If you identify any of the following issues, it’s a pretty strong clue that your rain gutters have some kind of damage.
Once you notice a gutter issue, you can decide if it’s something you feel comfortable fixing or remedying on your own or if it’s something you’d rather call a gutter specialist for.
Sitting Water Near Your Home
Sitting water is a good sign that your gutters or downspouts are not sending the water runoff away from your house the way they should be. Standing water can lead to mold, weakening of your foundation, and creates the perfect habitat for pesky mosquitoes. Plus, it will leave the areas around your home perpetually wet and muddy.
Mold or Mildew
Either one of these is a bad sign, whether you see mold or mildew on the rain gutters or on the sides of your home. Mold and mildew indicate there is excessive moisture around that area – a possible problem with the gutters could be the cause. Remember that mold and mildew are likely to appear 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 scenario where the advice and expertise of a professional in East Lansing would be helpful.
Rain Pouring Over the Gutter
You will need to wait until it’s actually raining to notice 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 needs to be cleaned. In either case, you need to have it looked at ASAP.
Basement Leaks
Depending on the construction of your basement, the leaking could be due to any number of things. The pooling problem we mentioned earlier could definitely lead to a basement leak. Egress windows and even cinder block walls can 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. But, a leaking gutter or clogged gutter will allow rainfall to overflow or pool in areas where it isn’t supposed to. This pooling 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 a visible sign that there is excessive moisture on a surface. Water marks are sometimes left behind even if pooling water has evaporated or dissipated into the ground. You will usually see water marks under the gutters or directly behind the downspouts. This is a typically a sign that water is pouring down the outside of the gutters rather than staying inside of them.
Visible Gutter Damage
The last sign of gutter damage is by far the simplest to find. If your gutters are bent, sagging or cracked in the middle, they obviously have damage. Following a storm, it’s a good idea to walk around your home to identify any 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 couple of simple tips East Lansing Gutter Experts recommends to prevent gutter damage:
Clean your gutters out at least one time a year. You can extend the time between gutter repairs by keeping them cleaned out. As with anything else, the better you care for your rain gutters, the fewer issues you’ll have with them.
The optimal 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 handle the mess or the risk.
Inspect your gutters often. Signs of 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 issues we discussed above.
We’d suggest that you complete an exterior home inspection after each season to confirm that your gutters are working correctly.
When you see signs of gutter damage, act fast. Taking care of 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 and quickly.
But, if you let the issue 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.