How to Clean Out Your Gutters

Cleaning out the gutters can hardly be described as a preferred chore. However, there is no denying the importance of cleaning out the gutters.

Some Rudimentary Tips for Maintaining Your Gutters

Gutter protection plays a huge role in keeping your gutters and roofing protected all year-round. However, gutter guards will also need maintenance like any other house implement you own. The best times to conduct maintenance would be spring and fall.

Getting the Best Gutter Protection System

In cleaning or maintaining your house, you have to consider all sides and corners. The exteriors, where gutters, attached to the entire roofing system, belong, are as equally important as the interior parts of your home.

Gutter maintenance take a bit from your time and savings. It takes some effort to keep your gutters free of debris that may soon clog the rainwater channels. Some homeowners install protective gutter guards as a plausible solution to having professional roofers or cleaners clear the roof and gutters frequently throughout the year.

Not all gutter guards work, though, so be wary before you buy the product. Size matters when it comes to gutter protection. The gutter guards should be able to completely cover the width and length of your gutters. You can employ professional companies to get a quote estimate after their on-site inspection.

The type of material and condition of your roof are important points as well. This will determine if and how a gutter guard can be installed and which type suits your home. It is advisable to seek the services of a professional gutter guard installation company, for roofing work that will not affect the warranty on your roof. The most important consideration, of course, will be value for money, which means efficiency at a price worth its performance.

Preventing Water Damage to Your Home

Water, for all its usefulness, is actually detrimental to your home when it seeps into places where it shouldn’t be. If you want to prevent expensive water damage to your home, below are a few helpful tips.

Dry Foundation

Remember that your downspouts aren’t just intended to allow rainwater runoff from your roof to gently fall to the ground—they’re also designed to keep water from drenching your foundation as well as your basement. You have to inspect your downspouts regularly, especially after a bad storm, as they might have incurred some damages where water can leak.

Painting Wood

When you’re painting or repainting your wooden fence, deck, siding or other exterior fixture, make sure that you apply a coating of primer first to protect the wood. To be even more efficient, try removing all traces of old paint, and sand the wood surface before applying primer. This will make it more resistant to moisture.

Gutter Cleaning

You should see to it that you get your gutters cleaned regularly, especially in autumn and winter when there’s a high risk of snow or debris clogging up your gutters. Of course, if you don’t want to get up on your roof for a clearing session every few months or so, you can always buy a reliable gutter protection system that can help improve the flow of water into your gutters by preventing debris buildup.

Gutter Helmet Celebrates Three Decades of Providing Gutter Protection

“Gutter Helmet, America’s leading choice in gutter protection, has come a long way since our brand was formally introduced over 30 years ago. We are proud to look back on the last three decades, during which we earned seven design patents and numerous recognitions from various organizations in the building industry.

Our success would not have been possible without the support of loyal clients, like you. This is why we strive to continuously improve our products and services to keep you coming back for more. We are more than honored to have you be a part of our company’s continued growth.”
http://www.gutterhelmet.com/blog/gutter-helmet-celebrates-three-decades-providing-gutter-protection/

Avoid Major Headaches by Cleaning Your Gutters

People have a habit of ignoring little niggles in their body—like frequent headaches—until something serious pinches its way to the surface. It’s then they pay attention. The same seems to hold true about repairs your house might need, especially with out-of-the-way parts like roofing and gutters. For the most part, all it takes is a reminder to clean those parts at least twice a year to prevent the following major problems: :

ICE CLOGS

When your gutters are clogged with leaves and tiny debris, water pools in the area, damaging the material with constant moisture. Standing water in winter gets frozen into heavy blocks of ice whose weight can cause your gutters to crack or break away from the edges.

WATER DAMAGE

Moisture on roof shingles can form algae and moss that can weaken the roofing components, and ultimately cause leaky roofs. Water that pools in gutters also find its way down, seeping through siding, and concrete, as well as into your basement, which eventually creates molds on the walls. Water-damaged walls are common offshoots of neglected gutters. The excessive humidity within closed spaces invites mold infestations, which can seriously threaten your family’s health.

HOUSE FIRES

A choked gutter can be a fire hazard, as dried twigs and leaves become fuel for fire. Fores fires are especially prevalent in the summer and as embers are carried by the wind, they can land onto the pile of dried leaves and twigs in your gutter and start a house fire.

Avoid Major Headaches by Cleaning Your Gutters

People have a habit of ignoring little niggles in their body—like frequent headaches—until something serious pinches its way to the surface. It’s then they pay attention. The same seems to hold true about repairs your house might need, especially with out-of-the-way parts like roofing and gutters. For the most part, all it takes is a reminder to clean those parts at least twice a year to prevent the following major problems: :

ICE CLOGS

When your gutters are clogged with leaves and tiny debris, water pools in the area, damaging the material with constant moisture. Standing water in winter gets frozen into heavy blocks of ice whose weight can cause your gutters to crack or break away from the edges.

WATER DAMAGE

Moisture on roof shingles can form algae and moss that can weaken the roofing components, and ultimately cause leaky roofs. Water that pools in gutters also find its way down, seeping through siding, and concrete, as well as into your basement, which eventually creates molds on the walls. Water-damaged walls are common offshoots of neglected gutters. The excessive humidity within closed spaces invites mold infestations, which can seriously threaten your family’s health.

HOUSE FIRES

A choked gutter can be a fire hazard, as dried twigs and leaves become fuel for fire. Fores fires are especially prevalent in the summer and as embers are carried by the wind, they can land onto the pile of dried leaves and twigs in your gutter and start a house fire.

Tips for Maintaining and Cleaning Your Gutter

It is the duty of any homeowner to make sure that gutters are always functional. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter who cleans the gutters as long as they work when heavy rains and bad weather come. Here are some tips for making sure of this.

Get the tools

There are a few tools made specifically for cleaning up gutters, but you don’t necessarily have to buy them to do a good job. You could have as little as work gloves and a ladder to get this job done, or you could get special gutter scoops for clearing up the debris. Remember to measure your gutter first to get the right scoop size.

Safety first

Whether you’re using a ladder or working on a scaffold, always put your safety first. One way to ensure this, if you are using a ladder, is not to lean your ladder on the gutter itself but on a solid, sturdy surface that would just give out suddenly.

Hire a professional.

If you want to take the dirty work and danger completely out of your hands, you could always get professional help. These companies would definitely have the tools for the job and can ensure that the job is done thoroughly and without causing damage.

Cleaning gutters is a messy, hazardous job, but someone has to do it. Whether you do it on your own or hire someone, just make sure that your gutters are always clear and clean.

Gutter Guards: Covers or Screen?

With fall fast approaching, gutters everywhere will start collecting those beautiful, colored leaves pretty soon. As a result, a good number of people will have their ladders ready in order to clear out their gutters. Unless, of course, they’re people who had the foresight to invest in gutter guards.

Gutter guards are an attachable gutter part that keeps debris like leaves and twigs from clogging your gutters. Not only do they keep your gutters debris-free, they also save you the time you would have wasted getting up on your roof to clear the debris yourself.

Typically, gutter guards are classified into two primary categories: covers and screens. Screens are patterned after water filters. As such, screens allow a lot of water to pass through the gutter while keeping large pieces of debris out. Popular gutter screen materials are metal, nylon and aluminum. With cheaper material, gutter screens are cheap and easy to install but suffer from durability issues.

Gutter covers tend to be larger and more difficult to install as compared to gutter screens. Gutter covers function by literally covering a large area of the gutter, forcing debris to simply slide down and away from the gutter. However, the size of gutter covers prohibit large amounts of water from entering as well. This leads to water sliding off the gutter cover (just like debris) during heavy rainfall.