Gutters: Best Friend or Worst Enemy?

     Fall is officially upon us. It’s my favorite time of year. The sun is still warm but the air is crisp and cool. Fall is a beautiful time to be in Western North Carolina. Tons of people come here just to do some good ole fashioned leaf peeping, but you might want to take a peep at the leaves in your gutters. When all those beautiful leaves fall they don’t just land on the ground. They land on your roof and wind up in your gutters.

     Why is this a big deal? Well, there’s not much that will degrade your home from top to bottom, inside and out more than clogged gutters. Keeping gutters clean is very simple and can save you a lot of money while you live in your home and make you a lot of money when you sell your home.

How could something so simple have such a huge impact you might ask? Lets start from the top. It’s usually quite easy to tell when your gutters aren’t functioning properly. When it rains you may see water spilling over the edge instead of flowing to the downspouts. That’s most likely a result of your gutters being clogged. If the gutters aren’t cleaned and water is allowed to continue to flow in that manner for a long period of time, you’re in trouble. It won’t take long for the fascia (the part of the house gutters are attached to) or soffit (the material under the roof overhang) to start showing signs of damage. If the problem is allowed to persist for years, it could rot the fascia out completely. If that happens, you’re looking at having to replace the gutters, fascia, probably the soffit, and possibly even having some damage to roofing materials. CHA CHING!! There goes a chunk of cash.

Now lets move on down a little bit. If there’s water spilling out the front of your gutters, there could be water spilling out behind them too. If the problems I mentioned before haven’t been addressed, water can now get behind some of the material on the outside of the house and you really don’t want water trapped anywhere against walls or anywhere else for that matter. The water spilling over the gutter can easily wind up running down the walls on the outside of your home and get behind siding or other exterior finish materials. Now you’re looking at the potential for mold, rot inside the walls, and water getting directly to the foundation. This brings us to the ground level (and below!).

This might sound odd, but the most important function of your gutters is to keep water away from your foundation. Ever been in a musty basement? There’s a good chance it’s a gutter issue. Ever seen a cracked or compromised foundation? You guessed it, could be a gutter issue. If water is running over the side of your gutters, that water is falling right against the foundation. Over time that will cause an area to develop where water will collect right against the foundation. This can result in water getting into your basement or crawl space. It can also erode the earth to the point of exposing the footer and compromise the structural integrity of the foundation. Again, CHA CHING!!

This may all sound like I’m some kind of gutter alarmist, but we’ve all seen houses with these problems. Next time you’re out cruising around take note of some of the houses you pass and I bet you can identify one of these homes. Take a second to think about how much it might cost to repair or how much the house might be worth if they had just cleaned their gutters.

The leaves have been falling right along with the housing market. The leaves are almost finished coming down but there’s a lot of uncertainty about when the market will find it’s bottom. This means homeowners who need to, or want to sell their homes are going to have to do more to attract buyers and bring the best price. Step one, clean and inspect your gutters and drainage. When people look at your home, gutter problems are often the first thing they’ll notice. If there’s an issue, it’ll cost less to fix than you’ll lose in sale price. Step two, get all those wet and rotting leaves off your decks and patios. They’ll rot your deck and stain your patio. Cleaning those leaves and renting a power washer is cheap compared to what a buyer is going to ask you to take off the list price. Step three, consider getting a home inspection before listing your property. Not many people do this but it could set your property apart from others by giving you a road map of little fixes you can make to increase your potential, demonstrating transparency to buyers, making the contract to close process easier for everyone, and showing that YOUR GUTTERS ARE IN GOOD SHAPE!!