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How to Maintain Your Gutters

As much as rainwater loves your home, your home does not love rainwater.  Luckily, your gutters can prevent rain from infiltrating your home’s defenses by gently guiding it away from the foundation.  Gutters are a simple and unobtrusive tool, but they cannot perform their duty if they are clogged with leaves, sticks, and debris.  To ensure that your gutters are in great working condition,  perform some quick and routine maintenance about two or three times a year.

How to Maintain Your Gutters

Be Safe.   Working on your gutters can be very dangerous, especially if your home is quite tall.  You’ll need to comfortably use a ladder, remain balanced, and stay calm.  If you aren’t up to the task, do not attempt it.  Stay safe on the ground and call in a professional.   If you will be completing the task yourself, be sure to wear shoes with adequate friction and use a safe and functional ladder.

Remove Debris.  Once you’re able to access the gutters, your first task will be removing any obstructions that are clogging them.  These obstructions might include leaves, sticks, seedlings, bird nests, and other various debris.  Scoop the debris out and let the obstructions fall to the ground.  Or, if you’d rather, place them in a container (a bucket, a tarp) for disposal.  After that, attach a spray nozzle to a hose and flush away the fine debris that remains.

Test the Gutter.  Use your hose to conduct a test by placing it at the far end of the gutter (away from the drainpipe).  Turn the water on but keep the pressure low, and let the water move through the gutter and downspout.  Is the water flowing easily?  Is it pooling anywhere?  Is it leaking anywhere?  If everything appears to be in great working condition, you’re done! If not, mark the trouble areas and move on to the next two steps.

Repair Leaks.  If you notice any leaks, you will need to seal them.  Scrape off any rust before you begin and then apply a rust-inhibiting paint or treatment.  After that, repair the leak using roofing cement, creating a smooth patch so that the water can flow freely.  If the leak is very large, you may need to replace the entire section of guttering.

Maintain Downspouts.  If a downspout is clogged, you will need a  plumbers snake to clear it.  Snake the tool up into the gutter and then slowly pull it down, freeing any debris.  You may also be able to use the snake to push debris out of the top of the downspout.  Finally, if your downspouts don’t have major clogs, you can clear them out by simply inserting your hose and turning it on full blast.

Consider gutter guards.  Before installing a gutter protection system, it’s important to clean and realign your gutters towards your downspouts. You’ll never want to install gutter guards on a dirty, clogged system because it can void the effectiveness of your new gutter guards.