One of the most important parts of homeownership is regular upkeep, maintenance, and preventing damage when possible. Your home’s gutter system may not be one of the first things you think of when you consider ways to protect your home, but it is highly important.
There are dangers of not having gutters which can result in damage to your home and property. Here are some dangers that gutters can help prevent.
Five Ways Gutters Protect Your Home
- Protect Your Home’s Foundation: without gutters, rainwater can easily collect around the corners and edges of your home. This can cause damage to your home’s foundation as the continued moisture collection can cause it to become soft and weaken. This can lead to your home sinking into the ground, becoming unleveled, and, in severe causes structurally unsound.
- Protect Your Home’s Landscaping: water falling directly from the edges of your roof can damage your property’s landscaping. As water runs straight down without a gutter system to guide it holes can start to form in your yard. Over a long enough period, your landscaping can start to erode, leading to dips, valleys, and an overall uneven landscape. This is not only unsightly it can also be dangerous if left unfixed.
- Protect Your Home’s Exterior: water running down the edges of your home can easily damage the exterior. Common damage can include damage to the paint such as peeling or wearing away, permanent staining, and rotting of wooden exterior components. In addition, continued water runoff can lead to mold and mildew growth on your home’s exterior, in corners, and even in the basement. Gutters help protect people from this type of prolonged moisture exposure.
- Prevent Basement Flooding: your gutter system pulls water away from your home, which can help prevent basement flooding if you live on a slope or a hill. If your land is uneven water can easily run downward which can cause it to flood your basement depending on how your home is situated. A well-designed gutter system can direct rainwater and melting snow towards a sloping part of your property that leads away from your home.
- Collect and Guide Water: you can use your gutters to collect and guide rainwater for more practical uses. Many people collect rainwater and use it for a variety of common tasks such as cleaning and landscaping. Even if you don’t want to collect rainwater, you can still use your gutter’s spouts to guide water towards gardens or areas of your property’s landscaping that may not receive enough water.
Installing a Gutter System
If your home does not have gutters or the existing gutter system is inefficient a K-Guard Gutter System could be a practical solution. Covered gutters offer many advantages over open gutters that make them easier to manage and more useful overall. This extra protection means your gutters won’t be damaged by environmental hazards such as falling branches. Plus due to a filter, your gutters won’t become clogged with leaves and other debris. Finally, covered gutters are not an inviting nesting area for common vermin and incests.
Final Thoughts
One of the most common dangers to your home is the weather. Even common and uneventful occurrences such as rain and winter snow can damage your home over a long enough period if you don’t have a system in place to direct the water these weather systems produce. A gutter system directs rain and melting snow away from your home’s exterior, interior, and landscaping and helps prevent unwanted moisture, water collection, and potential damage. If your home doesn’t have gutters or your current gutters are aging or damaged, you should install a new gutter system to help protect your property from potential damage.