Often overlooked, but absolutely essential to keeping your home dry and weather proof, guttering faces the brunt of Ireland’s harsh winter storms and rain.
Your property’s guttering diverts excess water away from your home’s exterior walls and foundation, helping to reduce any building maintenance work you need to do. Everyone knows guttering needs cleaning out every few months, but what are the signs it needs repairing or replacing?
With over 25 years of experience of roofing in Dublin, we’ve seen plenty of guttering in our time! Our expert roofers in Dublin know exactly what to look out for with guttering problems, so we’ve created this handy guide to common signs your guttering needs repairing or replacing.
Gaps, cracks or fractures
Gutters need to be fully waterproof to be able to transport all that excess water away from your home and into the nearest drain. If you can see any obvious gaps, cracks or breaks in your gutters, they need to be addressed immediately. It’s surprising how quickly a hairline crack can develop into a gaping hole and let water flood down your fascia boards. Depending on where the gap develops, water damage to your home can also spread to the foundation of your home or the shingles above the gutter.
Random nails, screws and other fittings appearing around your foundations
If you’re lucky, this can be a quick fix by simply re-screwing your guttering to its fittings. If there’s been a heavy downpour recently, you may find the gutters around your home have worked themselves loose. If a section looks to be beyond a quick fix-me-up, it might be best to replace the section that’s damaged.
Peeling paint/orange flecks
If you notice your paint job looking worse for wear, it could be due to exposure to constant moisture from a leaky gutter. If you’ve only recently painted and see the beginning of rust appearing (orange flecks around the guttering), it’s best to inspect further and sort out any leaks now.
Standing water in the gutters
If your gutters look like they’re constantly full of water or overflowing, you might have a blockage somewhere along the line. If you see the downspouts of your gutters spurting water where they really shouldn’t, they could be blocked and the water’s now forced its way out of a weakness in the guttering. If you find your gutters acting like this, they need a clean out and an inspection to see if they need a repair or weren’t installed properly.
Sagging/pulling gutters
This is probably one of the most obvious things that tells you your gutters need some TLC! Gutters that are fitted properly and are working as they should be should be flush to your home and not sag. There’s a number of reasons for a gutter to start hanging low, including: guttering the wrong size for your home, improper drainage, blockages from debris/insect nesting, loose bracketing or excess standing water stuck in the guttering. Having sagging gutters not only makes your home look unsightly, but it also can be expensive to fix in the long run. As soon as you notice a problem with your gutters, get it fixed as soon as possible.
Mould
Mould can be caused by a number of things within your home, but a common culprit that’s often overlooked is blocked gutters! Mould is incredibly dangerous, especially for children and people with Asthma. If your basement is showing mould or your exterior walls are starting to grow it, your gutters may need checking for a leak in that area.
Water marks beneath the gutters
This might seem a bit obvious, but if there’s water marks or damage on the wall surrounding your gutters, they will probably need a bit of work done to repair any leaks or damaged areas.
So, what damage can bad gutters cause?
If you don’t replace gutters when they need it, your house could suffer expensive damage, such as:
Interior flooding from poor drainage
Damage to house foundations
Rotting fascia
Bowing driveways
Landscaping erosion
Insect breeding grounds
A general muddy mess!
So save yourself a headache in the long run and get your guttering repaired by our expert roofers in Dublin. We provide a free call out service, just give us a call on (01) 830 4004.