Photo by Adrien Olichon
Gutter maintenance might not be a topic hot on your mind when you’re considering the aspects of your home that need care, but make no mistake—issues with your guttering can cause a lot more problems than you might think.
They’re mostly out of sight, so it’s understandable that most people forget about them until there’s a problem. Nevertheless, routinely inspecting your gutters could save you a lot of time and money in the future.
In this short article, you’ll learn of three key elements to maintaining clean guttering so that you don’t get a nasty surprise.
Maintaining a Regular Cleaning Schedule
The most important thing you should be doing is clearing your guttering regularly. This will be responsible for preventing the vast majority of potential issues, and it doesn’t take you long to do.
Get some strong gloves and inspect the gutter for any twigs, leaves, or other dirt and debris, and simply remove the bulk of it by hand. Having done so, manually run some water through to check that there aren’t any blockages you’ve missed, and for particularly tough jobs, it’s best to hire a professional as you could risk breaking something.
You should be able to get away with giving the guttering a quick once over two or three times a year. Of course, this depends on the climate and nearby foliage surrounding your property, so use your own discretion.
Making Repairs
Sometimes, you’ll unfortunately find you have damage. This usually presents as cracks or corrosion depending on what materials the gutter is made of, but know that even small amounts of damage can cause serious water leaks which have mass effects elsewhere. These issues can also end up self-fulfilling, whereby the problem compounds itself and corrosion causes water leaking which then causes more corrosion. This is why regular inspections are so important.
Again, wear and tear is best addressed by a professional, but sometimes, the damage is mostly structural. It’s often the case that guttering sags, in which case you can reposition it yourself and retighten the bolts (sometimes, a quick tightening is all that’s actually needed).
For Added Protection
Once you’ve made the effort to inspect, clean, and potentially repair the guttering, you’re going to want to put some steps in place to keep things running smoothly for as long as possible.
The best thing you can do here is to install gutter guards: these are mesh fixtures that fit snuggly over the gutter to effectively prevent any bits of debris from getting inside and clogging them up. There’s still the potential for cracks and corrosion even if you use a gutter guard, but they do prevent 80 percent or so of all potential obstructive issues that can crop up.
Wrapping Up
Dealing with guttering problems can be a pain, but with how easy these problems are to prevent in the first place, there’s no reason to let things get out of hand. Put only a little time and effort in each year, and you’ll be set.
