Overflowing gutters can damage your home’s siding, rot the fascia boards, or even flood basements. To protect your budget against expensive , be sure to invest in preventative gutter maintenance and call an experienced gutter repair contractor when necessary. Below, you will learn about the five ways you should be preventing damage from overflowing gutters.
Clean Gutters and Downspouts
Over the course of a few months, your gutters can get weighed down by leaves, pine needles, twigs, pollen, and other outdoor debris. This is why it’s important to at least twice a year. If there are pine trees around your house, you will want to inspect and clean your gutters four times a year. Since evergreen trees shed a lot, you will be removing a lot of pine needles from your gutters.
If gutters are filled with debris, water won’t be able to flow properly out and away from your home. by cleaning your gutters in the spring and fall when there are high levels of pollen and falling leaves.
When you are done cleaning the gutters, take a hose and spray water into the gutters. If you notice the water isn’t draining properly through the downspouts, this could be indicative of a . Use a high-pressure water sprayer or plumbing snake to bust up clogs.
Install Gutter Guards
Like the name suggests, gutter guards prevent large outdoor debris from finding their way into your gutter system. However, most are unable to prevent pine needles and other small debris from getting into your gutters. While you will still be responsible for inspecting and cleaning your gutters at least twice a year, the gutter guards will prevent the majority of outdoor debris from collecting in the first place.
Install the Right Size Gutter System
Gutters can sometimes overflow if the gutter system is too small for the slope and size of the roof. If you suspect that your home’s gutter system is not the right size to handle roof runoff, we recommend you contact a reputable gutter system contractor as soon as possible.
Install Splash Guards
If the roof valleys are too steep, rainwater might not be able to flow into the gutters without splashing over the sides. Over time this splashing can cause water damage to your home unless you install gutter splash guards.
You or a professional gutter system installer will position the precut splash guards at the bottom of each roof valley. Next you will drill holes in both the splash guard and gutter before placing rivets into each hole. Finally, you’ll need to fasten the rivets to properly secure the gutter splash guard. Splash guard installation is an easy DIY project that should only take 20 minutes.
Inspect Gutters for Tilt and Slope
Lay a level across the mouth of the gutters to check the tilt. Gutters can overflow if they are tilting forward or backward. The slope of the guttering runs will also need to be inspected to make sure the slope is steep enough to move water toward the downspouts without splashing.
If you are interested in our gutter repair and installation service, please feel free to give us a call our Rockford roofing contractors at (616) 784-5700. The Comstock Park gutter repair contractors at Professional Home Improvement are dedicated toward helping homeowners keep the exteriors of their homes in good shape.