After gutters guard your home from moisture mayhem for many seasons, they begin to look a little war-torn. And when your gutters start looking war-torn, your house will look worse. Sagging, rusty-looking gutter pipes overstuffed with leaves that drip with staining dirty water do nothing to add to the aesthetics of your home. If you’re not one to worry about what the neighbors think, keep in mind that if you don’t maintain your gutters, the condition of your house will start deteriorating from the outside in. Moisture problems will start seeping in, bringing in contagious mildew and rot with it.
Maintaining your gutters should be a part of your yearly maintenance plans. If you’ve ignored your sagging gutters for a few seasons, it’s time to get up on your ladder and bring your gutters back to life.
The first thing you need to do is clean your gutters. Use your hands and a putty knife to wipe out all the leaves and twigs that have accumulated over the years, and rinse the pipes and downspouts out with a garden hose. Once it’s cleaned out, you can take a look at the damage.
Take a look inside the trough at the joints between connecting pieces. You don’t want water dripping through these joints instead of being fully focused on the diverting downspout. Fill the seams with a caulking compound – you’ll find some labeled as “gutter seal” at the hardware store. After you clean and dry the seam area, squeeze on some caulk and smooth it in. There are also aerosol sealers on the market that can make the job easier.
If you have rusty galvanized metal gutters, you can fix up the rust holes with a few layers of foil paper and roofing cement. Scrub the area clean with a wire brush, then liberally brush on some roofing cement. Then press on some heavy-duty foil paper. Apply a second layer of roofing cement over that piece of foil paper, press on another sheet of foil paper, then add the last and final layer of roofing cement over the second piece of foil paper. Smooth out the final layer with a putty knife. If you have wood gutters, you should be treating your wood with a preservative every five years.
If it’s been a particularly windy fall or heavy winter, you might have ended up with sagging gutters. Basically, you just need to push them up and snap them into place. Remove the hangers or spikes that are keeping your gutters up. Snap the gutter back up to its original height, then refasten the hanger or spikes to keep the gutter pipe in its proper position. If your gutters are supported with hanging brackets, you might just need to loosen the bracket, reposition the gutter pipe, and tighten the bracket back up. Inspect your gutter line for broken hangers, brackets or spikes and replace any that look like they’ve had a rough season of holding things up.
If you don’t have a screen or leaf guard on your gutter covering the water trough, now is the time to put one on. You can fasten on a homemade screen, or buy easy-to-install mesh guards or aluminum leaf guards. The aluminum leaf guards are more costly, but they are angled so leaves fall to the ground instead of collecting on the wire mesh.
Plan on a dry day or two after the autumn season to get your gutter work done. Keeping your gutters from entering a war-torn state will keep your house from being a constant battle to repair. Gutter maintenance is time consuming, but by investing only a couple days a year, your gutters will work year-round to guard your home from water woes and moisture mayhem.