5 Sign You Need Gutter Repairs
When was the last time you looked at your gutters? The truth is, most homeowners rarely think about their home’s gutter system outside of the occasional necessary gutter maintenance. Too often, gutters become clogged or damaged and continue to be overlooked for far too long, allowing water to pool where it shouldn’t and damage a home.
At Budget Exteriors in Minnesota, we help homeowners with a complete range of exterior remodeling services including gutter repair and replacement services. In this post, we’re breaking down some of the top signs your gutters are in need of repairs. Use this helpful checklist to check out your gutters and then give us a call to schedule gutter repairs before winter hits this year.
1. Water on the Ground
If you’ve got water pooling near your home, it poses a threat to your home’s foundation, where it can cause settling and cracks over time or even get into your basement.
Ideally, gutters should effectively move water away from your home, using downspouts to send it out into your yard. If water is collecting or pooling, you could have a clog or a poorly aligned gutter canal. Have your gutter system checked right away.
2. Soil Problems
Eroded soil and bald spots in the grass near your house can also indicate there’s a problem with water pooling when it rains. Poor water drainage from a home’s gutter system is one of the primary causes of soil and landscape erosion. When water spills over a gutter clog, the stream is often a highly focused one, and the pressure can be devastating to your lawn. Given time, the resulting soil erosion can wreak havoc on your grass, making it difficult to grow grass there again in the future.
Similar to soil erosion is the problem of oversaturation. As the ground beneath a gutter clog becomes oversaturated, the vegetation below it can begin to rot or the roots of the plant will begin to die. For many types of bushes, trees, and shrubs, this can be a death sentence. If you’re noticing similar issues near your home, it’s time to look at your gutters for possible water drainage failure.
3. Siding Trouble
When your gutter system is functioning as it’s meant to, you should never have any problems with siding getting wet. To check for this problem, take a look at the siding around your home. If you’ve got a spot where the wall looks especially dirty, this could mean water is splashing onto it when it rains, a sure sign of damaged or improperly functioning gutters.
Once these leaks or clogs have gone on for a long time, the siding can even become warped or the paint may begin to peel. When this happens, a gutter specialist needs to determine whether there’s a clog or if there’s a section of gutter that needs to be completely replaced.
4. Sagging Gutters
It’s easy to overlook regular gutter cleaning, but it can have disastrous consequences over time. During the fall months, gutters can begin to fill up fast with debris from falling leaves. As gutters fill up with leaves, twigs, and other debris, they can become clogged, and all of that water and debris can create added weight. Over time, this can cause the gutters to sag or even pull away from your house. If you’ve noticed sagging gutters, a gutter repair technician may be able to repair them. However, you should consider investing in gutter guards to eliminate the need for regular gutter cleaning.
5. Obvious Gutter Damage
Often, if you look hard enough, you’ll be able to see the source of trouble with your gutters. Besides looking for signs of uneven, pulling, or sagging gutters, you should keep an eye out for broken or damaged joints, rust, and poor drainage. Another common problem that can occur is gapping between the gutter joints. If you’ve got gaps between your gutters, they aren’t able to do their job correctly. This means water isn’t moving away from your home and could end up causing more serious problems down the road for your foundation.
Call Our Twin Cities Gutter Repair Team
To keep your gutters functioning as they’re meant to, cleaning out your gutter canal system regularly is essential. But most homeowners don’t look forward to the task of climbing a ladder and using a trowel to scrape out their gutters every few months. To keep your gutters in the best possible condition, consider having gutter guards installed on your home. With gutter covers, gutter maintenance is a breeze.
Are your gutters in need of repairs or you’re concerned about how well they’re draining? Don’t take a chance on foundation and lawn damage by putting off gutter repair services. Call to connect with our Budget Exteriors gutter repair team at 952.887.1613 or contact us online and schedule your services today.