Gutters

None of us enjoy doing the mundane and sometimes dirty chores around the house. These tasks may seem to be pointless and unpleasant, but there is good reason to get them done. Sometimes understanding the reason behind a chore gives some extra motivation to get it done! Cleaning gutters is one of those tasks that we must do periodically, but why must we have clean gutters? Why is it so vital for us and our home?

Here are 7 reasons why having clean gutters is a must!

1. Prevent insect infestations. Don’t allow rodents to become established.
2. Prevent unpleasant odors around your home.
3. Prevent disease.
4. Protect your gutters from damage.
5. Stop water damage
6. Keep your home looking good.

Getting your gutters cleaned might seem like a mundane chore. We’re here to tell you not to lose sight of how important this is for the safety and comfort of your home!

Why Must The Gutters Be Cleaned?

Cleaning out the gutters on your home is one of those home maintenance jobs that you might put off until it’s too late. Clean gutters is a must-do.

Sometimes, understanding the benefits to be gained out of completing an otherwise thankless chore helps to give us the motivation and determination to get it done with a little more enthusiasm and feel like we accomplished a worthwhile task.

To help with boosting your enthusiasm for getting your gutters cleaned, we will show you all the benefits you get by ticking this chore off the list.

So why must we have clean gutters? Here are our top 7 reasons to get you motivated!

1. Preventing An Insect Pest Infestation

The collection of leaf litter and other vegetation debris in the gutters provides an ideal environment for many unwanted creepy-crawly pests. Vegetation in the gutters provides them with a food source, a safe hiding place, and a perfect location to breed and proliferate.

As the insect population gets established in the leaf-filled gutters, it attracts other insects that prey on the ones that have taken up residence in the vegetation.

It may start with some ants, cockroaches, moths, and flies, but these will begin to attract predatory creatures such as spiders, scorpions, and centipedes. Pretty soon, you have a whole insect ecosystem thriving in your gutters, and it is a matter of time before they look for more comfortable accommodation inside your home.

With clean gutters, you remove the environment for these creatures and prevent them from having a chance to become established in your home.

2. Prevent Rodents Being Attracted To Your Home

Rodents are another group of creatures that we do not want to take up residence in and around our homes. They can be destructive to our garden and homes, and they can bring with them health risks for us and our pets.

The leaves, sticks, and other roof-top debris in the gutters provide the rodents with a ready supply of nesting material, and the gutter gives them shelter and protection due to the height.

Rodents nesting in gutters and downpipes can further block the entire gutter system and make the job of clearing them out a much more unpleasant and challenging task.

The additional blockages they cause in the roof drainage system can lead to damage to your home when the water overflows. Not to mention the problems they pose from a health perspective and the damage they can do to your home’s electrical system if they move into the roof.

Once they move into the warm, dry area of the roof space, it is difficult to get rid of them, and they are prolific breeders. This means that once they get a foothold, their population will boom, and a few rodents will quickly become an infestation in one season.

They will also chew any electrical cables, alarm system cables, and other wires in the roof, causing significant damage that could cost you a lot of money to repair.

3. Smell Of Rotting Vegetation

If the gutters are not cleaned as part of your spring home maintenance, the gutters will fill with water and not be able to drain efficiently once the first rains fall.

This will result in stagnant water soaking the vegetation, and it will begin to rot in the water. The rotting vegetation will start to smell and may result in unpleasant odors in and around your home.

4. Prevention Of Disease

The build-up of leaves and other rubbish in your gutters not only creates a suitable environment for rodents and insect pests. But it can also harbor diseases. When water stagnates in the gutters’ vegetation, it provides an ideal breeding ground for bacteria and also for mosquitoes.

Mosquitos are an annoyance and can also bring the diseases associated with them closer to your home.

5. Gutter damage

Without clean gutters, the accumulation of organic material and the build-up of water in the gutter can create a significant weight that the gutters need to support.

The structure of the gutter material and the brackets that hold them in place on your roof were generally not designed to maintain this kind of weight over an extended period of time.

If left uncleared, the weight will increase, and the bracket fasteners may pull out, the brackets fail, or even the gutters themselves may crack and break.

For you as the homeowner, this will mean more time and expense in repairing this damage that some routine gutter maintenance could have avoided.

6. Water Damage

Water damage can be a severe problem associated with blocked and clogged gutters and downpipes. The gutter system is designed to channel excess water from the roof away from your home to prevent this kind of damage.

Blocked gutters can result in the following water damage to your home.

• Roof damage. Overflowing gutters can cause your roof timbers to become wet and waterlogged. This can cause the timbers to swell, causing roof tiles to fall off, or it can even cause the roof timbers to begin to rot and encourage the growth of mold.
• Foundation damage. If the water from the roof is not being directed away from your foundations, you could have problems with foundations being compromised structurally as the water washes away the ground support. Excessive water around the foundations can also result in rising damp issues.
• Garden damage. If you have garden beds planted around your house, the cascade of water over the top of blocked gutters can demolish your plants, erode the soil in the garden beds, and wash them away.

The simple task of cleaning out the gutters regularly will help prevent this type of damage to your home and garden, which could become quite costly.

7. Keep Your Home Looking Good

Blocked gutters that cause overflowing of dirty water will result in stains down the walls of your home and the sides of your gutters as well.

These stains, along with the unsightly sticks and leaves poking out over your gutters, detract from the aesthetics of your home.

Not only will these aesthetic problems require more work and finances to rectify, but they will bring down the tone of the neighborhood and can even end up devaluing your home.

Having clean gutters will help keep your home looking good and add to your property’s value rather than negatively affecting these values.

Take Care Cleaning Your Gutters

One thing to note when cleaning out the gutters that you should consider before embarking on the task alone is that it can be dangerous.

Working atop a ladder leaning against the roof and using both hands to clear out the gutter can be a precarious position. It is best to tackle this maintenance task as a two-person job. If nothing else, the second person can help to stabilize the ladder while you work.

Just take care not to throw wet vegetation down onto the person holding the ladder. This is one way to lose popularity quickly, and remember, your safety is in their hands!

If you don’t do well with heights or don’t feel comfortable doing this job yourself, the better option would be to hire a contractor to come out and do this job for you.

Conclusion

We hope that these reasons why you must clean your gutter have given you some incentive and motivation to get this chore done. If you can consider this maintenance task as a home improvement project, you may overcome the mental block of seeing it as a chore, and the work may be a little more satisfying!

Take the time out to complete this task before your rains start, and you will be amazed at the benefits you will gain for yourself and your home rather than procrastinating with getting clean gutters!

About Gutter Gorilla

The Gutter Gorilla has been providing superior seamless gutter installation, gutter guards, gutter cleaning, and gutter repair services to our clients in Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Summerville, and the surrounding areas for years. Our commitment is to provide quality and timely service without compromise on every job, and we are proud of our high standard of service. If you are looking to protect your residential or commercial building from the harmful effects of water, have us install your gutters. The Gutter Gorilla, one of the market leaders in the industry of seamless gutters installation, gutter guards, and gutter repair.

If you are someone who does your own home improvements and home maintenance, you may have noticed when cleaning the gutters or replacing a gutter that they have some slots on the front-facing side. Older gutter styles and certain gutters do not have slots. So why do some gutters have slots, and what purpose do they serve?

Some gutters have slots on the side of the gutter facing away from the house as an overflow protection measure. The slots allow excess water in an overflow scenario to exit from the front of the gutter rather than the side close to the house and potentially causing water damage to the house and roof.

It turns out that the slots on your gutters have an important function. Let’s look at the details, which will come in very handy when doing gutter maintenance.

What Purpose Do Slots In Gutters Serve?

If you take notice, you will observe that not all gutters have slots included in their forward-facing profile. Older homes that have metal gutters typically do not exhibit this feature. The slots in the gutter are a more modern feature that has appeared in the gutters made of molded materials since it is easier to include this feature in their designs.

The slots that are on the front of the gutters are a safety feature that is intended to cater to a gutter that overflows. Should a gutter overflow, for whatever reason, you don’t want the water filling the gutter to the top and overflowing toward the house.

Water overflowing on the house side of the gutter can result in water damage to the roof beams that support the eaves of the house and also to facia boards if they are installed on your house.

The roof beams that support the overhanging eaves are generally protected from the weather by the roof covering that extends over the eaves. The gutter often is secured directly to the end of these beams. If water overflows toward the beams, it will come into contact with the end-grain of the wood. The wood will absorb the water via wicking action and will travel up the beam.

This can be problematic if it occurs on a regular basis, as the wood softens when it gets wet and may no longer be able to support the weight of the roof.

If you reside in a location which has a climate that has high humidity, the wood may take some time to dry out, which could result in mold and wood rot setting in which will destroy the wood beams in the long term.

The slots in the gutter prevent this by giving the water an exit point before it reaches the top of the gutter. This allows the water to exit at the front of the gutter rather than the back, thus protecting your roof, the timber beams, and other roof features from sustaining water damage.

How Do I Prevent My Gutters From Overflowing?

In order to take preventative measures to stop your gutters from overflowing, we first need to examine some of the most common causes that result in an overflowing gutter.

1. Incorrect gutter leveling

The gutters must not be installed perfectly level. They should be fitter so that they have a gentle slope towards the side where the downpipe is located. If the gutter is incorrectly angled, it will cause a buildup of water in the gutter, and it will overflow in a heavy downpour. It will also result in water standing in the gutter, which can become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. To fix this overflow issue, you will need to adjust the slope of the gutters.

2. Incorrectly sized gutter and downpipes

If you live in a location where you have regular heavy rain downpours or snowmelt, then you may need to have wider gutters and down-pipes installed to cater to the additional volume of water that needs to flow through the system.

3. Blocked gutters

Gutters can be blocked by any number of debris, but the most common is from leaves that have fallen from nearby trees during the autumn and wintertime. These leaves build up in the gutter and prevent the free flow of the water through the system. This will require seasonal maintenance to clean out the gutters before the first rains come or trimming the nearby trees so that they do not shed their leaves directly onto your roof.

4. Blocked downpipes

Downpipes have been known to become blocked by many different types of obstructions, from fallen leaves to rodents, birds, and insects making nests inside the downpipe during the dry season. Seasonal maintenance should be done to rid the system of these blockages.

5. Blocked gutter slots

The overflow slots in the gutter can also become blocked, preventing the slots from performing their intended function of directing the overflow away from the house and the roof. The most common cause for this type of blockage of the slots is pine needles, which can slip into the slots and become jammed there and, over time, block the slot completely. Dust buildup can become mud in the event of light rain, which can block the slot when the mud dries. The prevention here would be to trim the offending trees or do spring maintenance on your gutter and clear them out and scrub any dust buildup from the slots with an old toothbrush.

Are Slotted Gutters Necessary?

Slotted gutters are not a necessity for your home. If you size your gutters and downpipes correctly and install them properly, normal gutters without the slots will function just as efficiently.

Many people do not like the aesthetics of the slots in the gutters and prefer not to use this style of gutter because they feel that they detract from the overall look and appeal of their home.

Slotted gutters are also generally more costly than the non-slotted variety, so the price factor is sometimes a deciding factor when people are looking at replacing the gutters on their house.

Slotted gutters are not the only preventative measure available to stop rainwater from overflowing towards the house side of the gutter. There are various types of flashing that can be installed between the gutter and the eaves or the facias that will protect these components should an overflow condition arise.

Often the building code in areas of high rainfall or heavy thunderstorms will have certain stipulations for minimum overflow protection measures that must be included in the type of gutters installed to limit the potential for water damage in the event of a blockage or a particularly heavy rainfall event.

Conclusion

The slots in some types of gutters are a design feature to prevent overflowing water from flowing out over the back of the gutter and towards the house in the event of a blockage in the gutter system. Some people like the feature while others do not like the look of the slots and others feel that it is another place where the gutter can become clogged if it is not regularly cleaned.

If you have many trees over your house that shed their leaves onto your roof in the wintertime, chances are that these leaves will also block the slots on the gutter. Having slots in the gutter, therefore, does not necessarily translate into less seasonal maintenance that you will have to perform on your roof.

The slots may, however, help if you have occasional leaves on your roof that may block a downpipe and cause an overflow.

The choice to have slotted gutters or not is yours, but the housing code in most areas will require that the roof plumbing has some sort of overflow protection. This can be flashing on the house-facing side of the gutter, or gutters with a front face that is lower than the rear face, or gutters with slots.

Slots on a gutter are but one solution for the overflow problem, so do some research into alternatives and decide on what would look better on your house and what would suit your individual needs better.

About Gutter Gorilla

The Gutter Gorilla has been providing superior seamless gutter installation, gutter guards, gutter cleaning, and gutter repair services to our clients in Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Summerville, and the surrounding areas for years. Our commitment is to provide quality and timely service without compromise on every job, and we are proud of our high standard of service. If you are looking to protect your residential or commercial building from the harmful effects of water, have us install your gutters. The Gutter Gorilla, one of the market leaders in the industry of seamless gutters installation, gutter guards, and gutter repair.