Cleaning and Maintaining Gutters
There are perks to being a homeowner, but pesky tasks like keeping your gutters cleaned and maintained is not one of them. Home gutters are viewed as a small part of your home upkeep, and are often overlooked. Properly installed and maintained gutters keep water draining away from your home to avoid costly water damage issues.
We have some standard information and 4 tips to make your gutter cleaning activity a tad less daunting. Keeping your gutters well-maintained isn’t difficult, but having some tips to point you in the right direction if you’re a home repair novice, never hurts.
How Often Should Gutters Be Cleaned?
Gutters should be cleaned twice per year. If you happen to have lots of trees around your home, it may be advantageous to have them cleaned out every three months. So now is a good time to consider what you need if you plan to handle your fall cleaning yourself, or to get on the books with a local gutter cleaning company like Shelby Roofing in Arnold, MO. Regular gutter cleaning should be a part of your home maintenance.
An advantage to having a professional gutter cleaning company handle the project for you, is we will be able to quickly spot any gutter repairs that need to be fixed to save you money on bigger issues that will arise from faulty gutters. Cleaning gutters on your own also means having to have good balance, and being able to deal with varying roof heights. Having a roofing company take this off your plate takes a potentially dangerous activity.
Pro Tip #1: What Months Should You Clean Your Gutters?
Ideally, in the spring and fall months. In the spring to remove all debris from the winter months, so spring showers and storms are able to be properly drained with your gutter system. In the fall it should be done again to remove everything from both summer storms, and falling leaves and twigs that have clogged up your gutters and downspouts.
Pro Tip #2: What is the Best Way to Keep Your Gutters Clean?
Gutter cleaning can be handled in a few ways.
A- You can absolutely manually pull leaves and other debris from your gutters by hand. It’s probably not the most pleasant or time efficient way to handle it though. Doing it this way will make it difficult to remove leaves and twigs that have become compacted in your gutters and downspouts. This would be the least recommended way of cleaning your home’s gutters.
B-A standard garden hose can also be an option. However, some hoses still won’t be strong enough to fully remove compacted debris while handling your gutter cleaning project.
C-You can also opt to use a power washer, or gutterwand, to force leaves and gutter debris out. This process will definitely be a faster, and a more effective way of getting them more cleaned out.
D-Hire Shelby Roofing & Exteriors to clean your gutters if you live in Arnold, Oakville, Imperial, Fenton, or the Greater St. Louis Area. When we handle your gutter cleaning project, we not only “just clean” your gutters, but we can do a gutter system flush, and even install powder-coated gutter screens to keep your gutter system working efficiently. At Shelby Roofing we will even add leaf protection to help stop bulky debris from clogging up your system.
Option C is the best way to handle your gutter cleaning to get the junk build up out of there on your own, and ensure your gutters and downspouts are able to work at capacity. Option D would be the most efficient and effective way, and will ensure your system is working at full capacity, and water is being kept away from your home. This will help avoid water damage problems.
Pro Tip #3: Install and Check Gutter Guards
Gutter guards are another layer of protection for your gutters. If you don’t currently have gutter guards, we would strongly advise you to either install them yourself, or have a professional come install them for you.
Why do you want gutter guards? Have you noticed before that after a storm, or even heavy rain, dirt and other debris has been splashed up onto the side of your house? You most likely also noticed that the dirt around your home has been disrupted by the heavy rainfall. Splash guards are installed at the bottom of your downspouts, as well as on your roof, to move water away from your home. This helps deter the development of mold and mildew.
Pro Tip #4: Ensure Your Gutters Are Positioned Properly
One area that can absolutely wreak havoc on your home, is if your gutters aren’t positioned properly. Both tilt and slope need to be addressed when checking that your gutters are properly positioned. You need to check that your gutters aren’t tilted too far backwards, or too far forward. Either of these incorrect positions will make it so the water going into your gutters doesn’t drain properly.
The slope of the gutters is immensely important. Typically, you want your gutters to be sloped ¼ inch for every 10 feet of gutter.
Keeping your gutter system up to par can save you larger headaches down the road. Contact Shelby Roofing today to get a quote for your gutter cleaning services!
