How To Gutter Cleaning and Repair ?
Never underestimate the importance of gutter cleaning. Clogged gutters can damage your roof over time, causing your basement or attic to flood, ruining the landscaping, and rotting your home’s foundation. You can prevent these damages by doing gutter cleaning operations correctly at least twice a year in Spring and Autumn.
Gutter cleaning keeps water flowing smoothly through your home and prevents damage to many parts of your structure, not just the roof. Clogged rain gutters can destroy soffits, fascia, siding, landscaping, and the foundation of your home, which are costly repairs you can avoid by simply cleaning your gutters.
Benefits of Gutter Cleaning
1. Avoid Flooded Basements:
You may be surprised to find that clogged gutters are one of the top causes of basement flooding due to lack of attention to gutter cleaning. Foundations are porous. If you don’t remove water from the foundation, moisture will seep in and cause the foundation to slip and crack during freeze/thaw cycles. And after a while, water seeps through the foundation, causing the basement to flood and mold growth.
2. Prevent Damage To Substrates and Fascia:
Smooth running grooves will prevent damage to soffits, fascia and soffits. (ICYDK, the soffit is the underside of the roof overhang, and the fascia is the long vertical sheet that sits at the end of the roofline and bridges the roof to the soffit. An easy way to remember that the soffits are horizontal and the fascia is vertical, and “face out.”) The gutters are attached to the fascia. So if the gutter is filled with debris and water, the weight can cause the gutter to break off the fascia and damage both the gutter and the fascia.
3. Save Your Plants From Drowning:
Clogged gutters overflow in heavy rains, damaging the underlying garden beds. Most common landscape plants such as hydrangea, viburnum, rhododendrons, Japanese maple, and juniper all need well-drained soil. Their roots need oxygen, so if they sit in muddy water and saturated soil, they can drown in a day or two.
4. Prevent Water Leakage From Your Ceiling:
If rainwater and melting snow cannot be removed from the house, all this water will accumulate on your roof and pass under the tiles, eventually causing leaks inside your house. With gutter cleaning, rain water should be evacuated easily.
5. Gutter Cleaning Can Prevent Ice Dams:
Ice dams occur when snow melts off your roof and then refreezes and fills your gutters with blocks of ice and suspended icicles. Icicles may look beautiful, but their weight can cause the gutters to separate from the fascia. Also, water and ice can get under the roof tiles and cause water leaks in your home.
6. Give Pests and Microbes a Place to Live:
A gutter filled with leaves and branches is an attractive nesting place for rodents, insects and snakes. Yes, snakes. They will go up the downpipe to eat the rodents. These rodents can also bite and damage the fascia and roof. Bacteria and viruses that these pests can cause can be dangerous and infect you.
7. Clean and Well-Maintained Gutters:
After gutter cleaning and maintenance, your gutters look more beautiful and like new. Therefore, after cleaning the inside of your gutters, use a high powered nozzle hose to remove any dirt, algae and algae that may build up outside the gutters.
Gutter Cleaning And Maintenance
1. Scoop Out The Debris:
Scoop out large debris like leaves and sticks with your hands. Pay particular attention to the downspout. If leaves and debris are clogging it, water won’t drain properly, and, along with mildew and mud, you’ll end up with sagging gutters. Attach a 5-gallon bucket to the side of the ladder with an extension hook or bungee cord so don’t have to clean the debris off the ground later. Tip: The decomposed leaves make great mulch or compost.
2. Find The “Right” Tools For Gutter Cleaning:
You don’t need special tools to remove debris from your gutters, just use whatever you have at home. A ladle or trowel works well. To loosen any stuck-on dirt or get into hard-to-reach spots, a paint stir stick will do the trick.
3. Wash With Pressure Water:
Find a starting point to begin gutter cleaning. It will be on the opposite side of the Downspout. Use the jet setting on the spray head of your garden hose to remove any remaining debris. Make sure that water flows under the outlet pipe and is not clogged.
4. Tighten Screws/Check Gutter Spikes + Ferrules:
Use a drill with a hex bit to tighten loose bolts on the gutter’s brackets. If you have spikes and ferrules (large bolts with sheathing), check that all the spikes go through the gutter and into the fascia board and rafter behind it. If they are loose, broken or rusted, replace or re-fasten them where necessary. If replacing spikes or brackets, be sure to get aluminum, galvanized or stainless steel so they won’t rot and rust.
5. Check for Cracks and Holes
Check the length of the gutters for leaks, and be on the lookout for holes and cracked caulking in the seams. Use an old chisel to scrape the old caulking out and dry the area thoroughly. Use new bead silicon sealing to keep water from getting behind the gutters and rotting the boards.
6. Inspect Downspouts:
Check that the downspouts and their connections are tight and sturdy. Make sure to take a good look at the rivets. It’s not uncommon for them to become loose or have dropped out completely. Use a rivet gun to re-secure them. Rivets and rivet guns are available at most hardware stores.
7. Add A Diverter
If you don’t have them already, add diverters at the bottom of the downspouts so water runs away from the house to protect your foundation.
7. Do Outer Gutter Cleaning:
Grime and mold can build up on the exterior of the gutter permanently staining it and making your house look dirty. You can use a pressure washer to clean the outside of the gutters, but be careful not to damage your roof shingles. A pressure washer can easily remove the top coating on an asphalt shingle. The key is to avoid hitting the gutters at too high an angle so you won’t hit the shingles. If the gutters are rusting, you might want to consider new gutters. But if you’re going to stay with the old ones, get all the rust off, sand them down, paint them with a good primer and then with a good-quality rust-inhibiting paint.
Gutter cleaning is an essential part of your home maintenance routine. Ensures that your roof stays healthy and water drains smoothly. By following the steps above, you can protect your home’s roof gutter system by performing gutter cleaning regularly. Clean and healthy gutters contribute to the longevity and safety of your home.
If you have no experience with gutter cleaning or gutter repair and have safety concerns, you can contact Gutters Prime, a professional gutter cleaning service. Our team of experts effectively and safely cleans gutters and repairs when necessary.