You work hard to maintain your home. But what are you doing about your gutters? While gutters are a prominent home feature, most people overlook them. Ensuring your gutters are in tip-top shape is essential for preventing blockages, leaks, water damage, mold growth and pest infestations.
One way to do this is by reinforcing your drainage systems with protective coverings. Gutter guards can provide numerous benefits, including saving time and money, preventing safety hazards and preserving your home.
What Are Gutter Guards?
A gutter guard is a protective device that sits over your gutters and reduces debris build-up in your gutters. Water falling from the roof will stream into the tiny gutter guard openings to promote water flow while leaves and dirt slide off the guard surface. This minimizes debris in gutters, which can lead to blockages and other significant issues.
Gutter guards come in numerous materials, including mesh, aluminum, steel, copper and PVC.
8 Gutter Guard Benefits
Here are eight benefits of gutter guards for your home:
1. Save Time and Money
Your gutters are there to collect dirt and debris, but they can fill up fast, requiring frequent cleaning. This cleaning can be time-consuming, but neglecting it can lead to gutter clogs, leaks and other damage. While professional gutter cleaning services can help you save time, gutter guards can help reduce how often they need servicing.
These protective covers can save you time and reduce your gutter cleaning expenses. Gutter covers stop dirt and debris from flowing into your drain pipes and minimize build-up. While professional gutter cleaning is still necessary with protective covers, you can significantly reduce the number of annual cleanings and services. Removing leaves and twigs from gutter covers can be less time-consuming, saving you time and money in the long term.
2. Repel Pests and Insects
Blocked gutters can cause stagnant water, leading to moist and warm conditions and an ideal breeding ground for pests and insects like mosquitos, rodents, birds, mice, squirrels and bats. These pests can enter your home and cause an uncomfortable living environment. Rodents, birds and bats can also damage your roof and other areas of your home.
A gutter cover acts as a barrier, repelling tiny and large pests and insects from entering the spaces in your gutter and home. Once bugs and rodents find a way into your gutters, it can be challenging to remove them, often requiring costly professional pest control services. A gutter cover is your best solution to prevent spending additional money.
3. Alleviate Gutter Freeze
Trapped gutter water can freeze over in the winter, leading to ice dams. This ice build-up can cause further gutter blockages. When the ice melts, the gutters can crack and come loose, leading to extensive damage. While cold conditions are expected, gutter guards can help alleviate the impact of freeze. Protective coverings promote water flow by preventing debris from filling up in your gutter and limiting standing water and ice dams.
4. Enhance Fire Protection
If you live in a region prone to wildfires, you know how quickly they can spread and the detrimental effects on homes and buildings. Embers can travel and ignite dry leaves or twigs in gutters, spreading to the home. That’s why taking precautions against fire hazards is essential. One way to do this is by installing gutter covers. Because these devices limit greenery and other debris from accumulating in your gutters, they help protect one of your home’s most valuable fixtures.
5. Prevent Rust
Moisture from leaves and pooling water can corrode your gutter lining, leading to rust. Rust and other corrosion can deteriorate your gutter, leading to premature breakage and replacement. Protective covers can prevent moisture build-up, reduce rust formation and extend your gutter’s life span.
6. Maximize Water Flow
One of the main tasks of a gutter is to push water away from your home and facilitate this flow through your downspouts. When gutters have excessive leaves and grime, they cannot properly filter through the water to the downpipes, leading to damage and pooling. Additionally, water with excess dirt can be challenging to recycle and use.
Because the gutter covers separate liquid and dirt, water can flow more freely through connected pipes. Better water flow is also advantageous if you have a rain tank or water-capturing system, as these can fill up faster with cleaner water, making it suitable to recycle and reuse.
7. Prevent Blockages
Did you know water damage affects approximately 14,000 homeowners in the U.S.? Clogged gutters are often one of the contributing factors to this moisture damage. That’s why gutter covers are so essential. These covers can prevent blockages that lead to water damage like leaks, stains and rot, helping you maintain your home’s integrity and save money on repairs. Here’s how various water damage can affect your home:
- Roof leaks can lead to flooding, structural damage and an unpleasant interior living environment.
- Pooling gutter water can seep into fascia boards attached to your home. If these boards deteriorate, your home’s structure is susceptible to other damage.
- Water from gutters can leak down the side of your home’s walls and collect in the foundation, weakening and deteriorating its base and structure.
8. Reduce Mold and Mildew
Moisture in gutters can seep into your home’s structural materials, leading to mold and mildew growth. Leaves, dirt and organic matter in the gutter might have mold spores that can grow and spread throughout your gutters. In addition to exterior mold growth, moisture can set into the walls and lead to rot when clogged gutter water builds up and has nowhere to go.
Rot can compromise your home’s structural integrity, weaken its foundation and cause extensive damage. It also creates the perfect breeding ground for interior mold growth.
Once inside, mold can cause illness and harm family members with allergies, asthma and other respiratory conditions. If mold invades your home, removing it can be challenging and often requires costly and invasive remediation services.
Choose Expert Gutter Guard Installation and Cleaning Services
While gutter guards are minor solutions, they can have significant benefits, like saving you money on mold removal and pest control, protecting your home’s foundation and structural integrity and ensuring a healthy living environment.
Better Gutter Cleaning provides reliable and expert gutter guard installation and maintenance services. We are leaders in the gutter cleaning industry, helping homeowners like you preserve their drainage pipes and homes. Our team is knowledgeable in gutter installations and cleaning and can provide high-quality and professional services.
Contact us online for a gutter installation and cleaning quote, and we’ll explain the process and estimated cost to ensure you’re satisfied before getting started.
