Maintaining Your Gutters this Summer – Family Roofing

Posted on by David Reid

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Maintaining Your Gutters this Summer

Summer is finally here.  Most of us are excited for time spent with family and friends-backyard cookouts, road trips, outings by the lake, and the like.  We may forget to take care of our homes’ roofs and gutters.  During the dryer, hotter months of the year, it is easy to think that our gutters won’t need much maintenance.  Below is a summer maintenance list for your gutters.

Remove Debris

The warmer, dryer climate allows for easier access to clean our gutters.  The first thing you need to do when you’re checking your gutters is to make them visible.  This means that you need to remove debris from the area.  Using gloves, scoop out debris such as sticks, needles, and leaves from your gutters.  Make sure that the gutters are clear of any remnants of last fall.

Clean off Gutters

Now that you’ve removed all of the debris from the gutters, you can almost see them clearly again.  It’s time to use a scrub brush and a gentle abrasive or soap to clean out your gutters.  Test your brush and your cleaning product on a test patch of the gutter before you commit to using said utensils.  As you scrub off the mold, moss, and algae from the gutters, look for areas that seem particularly bad and go back to them when you’re looking at roofing drainage. Areas with a lot of mold, algae, or moss could signal a drainage problem.

Check for Cracks and Seams

While performing your summer gutter cleaning, be sure to check for cracks and seams where water may leak from the bottom of the gutter before reaching the downspout.  Patch these openings with a waterproof sealant to be sure water can properly drain.

Make sure the gutters don’t pull away

Older gutter systems may begin to pull away from the roof, especially under harsh weather conditions.  When this happens, rainwater will roll off the roof, missing the gutters completely and increase the risk of leaks in the roof, siding, and foundation of your house.  You should always visually check your gutters to see if they’ve pulled away after a particularly bad storm.

Install New Equipment

Since summer tends to have less rain and snow than other parts of the year, it’s the perfect time to work on long term gutter maintenance.  If you’re thinking of installing new gutters or downspouts, the dry season is the ideal time to do that.  If you want to greatly reduce your fall maintenance, installing gutter covers will prevent fall leaves from entering your gutters.

Summer is actually a great time of year to look at your gutters to make sure everything is operating smoothly.  We recommend you contact a professional.  If there’s an issue with your gutters, it would be a good idea to address them before the leaves and rainfall of autumn arrives.