Proper care and maintenance of your gutters can spare you from all the problems and unwanted expenses. Call us for your gutter needs.
Home ownership can be a joy and a privilege. However, along with home ownership comes the annual upkeep and maintenance of your property; cleaning your gutters is a key item on this list. A certain subset of homeowners considers this upkeep in their list of joys of home ownership. Some, however, find the upkeep of their home to be more of a chore than anything else, and yet still others didn’t even factor any of this upkeep in when buying their home.
What does a clogged or leaking gutter have to do with my foundation?
The purpose of rain gutters is to channel water off the roof and away from your home’s foundation. When your gutters become clogged, it can play host to a variety of problems for you and your home. It can send water cascading down the side of your home where it ultimately pools around the foundation. When water is allowed to accumulate around your home, your foundation is put at serious risk. The possibility of erosion damage becomes real when nothing is done to mitigate it.
Erosion weakens your home by slowly removing layer after layer of foundation until it cracks and begins to leak. For those of you who don’t think erosion isn’t a big deal, I encourage you to do a little research about how the Grand Canyon was formed. It’s certainly an extreme example, but it’s only meant to demonstrate how powerful erosion truly is.
Once the foundation is eroded past the point of no return, it begins to crack. This cracking is serious and creates the possibility of your home caving in. A total collapse is the worst possible scenario resulting from this cracking; however, minor damage is also quite likely. Cracks in your foundation can lead to leaks, flooding and/or mold growth.
How do I know if my gutters are a problem?
Take a walk around your house while it’s raining (do NOT do this is there’s lightning) and check to see if your gutters are overflowing and/or leaking. Clogged downspouts are another area to look out for. Always make sure your downspouts are not clogged and that they are carrying water away from your house’s foundation.
For those homeowners who either consider gutter cleaning a chore or those who didn’t consider it at all from the get-go, the Gutterman is here to help. Our philosophy is to provide solutions to any problem related to your home’s gutters and water drainage. We are here to listen to your concerns, evaluate your situation and offer honest, straightforward advice. Give us a call today!
Fall is fast approaching. Are you gutters ready to take on all the leaves and rainfall that’s inevitably coming? There’s no better time to prepare your gutters for Fall than this Summer.
This time of year when the tree branches are full and our gardens are blooming, we don’t necessarily have our minds on our gutters a lot (that is unless the heavy spring rains made us aware of a drainage problem, via a flooded basement). But since the autumn leaves aren’t yet raining down on your roof and quickly clogging up your gutters, now is kind of a perfect time to think about your options for having fewer gutter-related headaches this fall.
Avoiding Clogged Gutters With Gutter Protection Systems
If you have traditional open gutters on your home, we can bet that — sometimes even around now, in the middle of summer — those gutters are regularly getting stocked up with sticks, brush, leaves, acorns and other kinds of debris. On top of having an adverse effect on your home’s curb appeal, clogged-up gutters can cause a variety of problems, from moisture damage in your basement and foundation all the way up to your walls and the fascia and soffit boards behind your gutters. And mosquitoes are no small problem in Middle Tennessee, so giving them a welcoming place to breed is never a good thing, and a clogged gutter provides a perfect mosquito breeding ground.
Whether you’re dealing with clogged gutter issues now or just interested in getting ahead of that headache before fall, it’s worth giving some thought to your options — namely, gutter protection systems. At The Gutterman, we can offer several different options that’ll make every season of the year easier.
SafeGuard Gutter Guard System
If you have relatively new and well-functioning gutters, the SafeGuard system can be a good option for you. These guards are made of a steel micro mesh on an aluminum frame, and they attach to your existing gutters to keep large pieces of debris from ever getting into them. The SafeGuard system is preferable to a lot of gutter protection products, because they’re made of highly durable materials and their installation doesn’t affect your roof shingles. Plus, with a 20-year no-clog warranty, you can feel confident that you’re removing headaches for the long haul.
K-Guard Gutter Protection
If you’re ready for new gutters (or have a leafy enough home that you want a really effective, long-term solution to gutter problems), upgrading to K-Guard Gutter Protection can make this fall less of a hassle, along with pretty much every fall to come. From our perspective, K-Guard is the best gutter protection system you’ll find — it’s designed to not only be highly effective at routing water properly and keeping debris out, but exceptionally durable too.
These are designed as one-piece systems, with a curved hood and 5-inch gutter shaped together. Water rolls over the hood and, through surface tension, moves into the gutter; debris washes away, instead of into your open gutters. The one-piece construction means you don’t have the potential for leaky seams, and the curved shape is a lot more attractive than traditional open gutters — these not only don’t detract from the look of your home, they enhance it.
K-Guard comes with a guarantee, too, that if a clog ever does occur, that problem will be corrected free of charge by a maintenance professional.
Another Reason Why It’s Worth The Investment
Anyone who’s ever cleaned a home’s gutters knows: It’s a big job, a physically demanding job and a serious time commitment — not to mention a somewhat risky activity, since you often have to perch on ladders or roofs. Calling a professional gutter cleaner is always an option and definitely a way to get that headache off your hands. But hiring a licensed and insured professional every year — for the several times a year it takes to keep gutters from clogging in Middle Tennessee — can add up, cost-wise. In most cases, when our clients replace their gutter cleaning bill with a gutter protection system, the system pays for itself in just a few years. And you don’t need to schedule those cleaning appointments anymore.
If you have any questions about gutter protection systems, The Gutter Man is always happy to help. Give us a call!
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