When it comes to your home, there’s a lot to keep track of to ensure you’re maintaining your property. As the seasons change, your to-do list piles up with seasonal items to keep your house in working condition — rake the yard, get decorations for the holidays, put that last coat of paint on the shutters before it gets too cold — you can blink and find yourself in winter having completely forgotten to clean out the gutters!
The good news is that it doesn’t matter what month you clean your gutters — the most important thing is that you’re able to keep them free of debris and buildup on a regular basis. While freezing weather can make cleaning gutters out a difficult task, the winter season is perhaps the most critical time of year to make sure your gutters are clean due to several seasonal hazards.
Dangers of Clogged Gutters in the Winter
If you find yourself with clogged gutters in the winter season, you might have to confront a few serious concerns.
Water Damage
When debris accumulates within your gutters, it reduces their capacity to drain. This can prevent your gutters from serving their purpose as water channels during particularly heavy rainfall, allowing water to overflow or — worse yet — seep into your roof fascia or siding and cause expensive water damage and rot.
Water damage can lead to leaks, rot, mold growth, structural instability and a variety of other costly repairs you’ll want to avoid this winter. It can also be difficult to detect because the damage may be hidden from your perspective at ground level.
A gutter full of twigs, acorns, leaves, and other debris can also accumulate ice during the cold season, which is definitely something you want to avoid.
Structural Damage
Gutters are designed to allow water to flow safely from your roof to the ground. While a properly maintained gutter system can withstand a summer downpour, it’s not built to handle the expansion of water as it turns to ice. As water freezes it expands, so frozen water in your gutter can cause the gutter or downspout to rupture requiring replacement. This stress, combined with the sustained weight of the ice in one location, can cause gutters to rupture or pull away from the roof.
A clogged gutter may accumulate and trap snow on certain spots of your roof. The extra weight of the snow sustained in one location may cause damage to your shingles or lead your roof to sag.
Such damage to your gutters may not be noticeable until temperatures warm and a roof leak becomes painfully apparent. For homeowners, finding the source of a leak can be a frustrating exercise. Water damage can cause expensive issues to ceilings, floors and appliances and could lead to dangerous mold growth.
Injury
If your gutters are dirty during the winter, it can result in damage throughout the season that can be difficult to identify at a glance from the ground. You may be tempted to grab a ladder from your garage and inspect your gutters in person.
It’s in circumstances such as these when homeowners can get seriously injured. They often lack the appropriate gear and equipment for safely scaling the side of their home or maneuvering on their roof and underestimate how slippery icy surfaces can get this time of year. That’s why it’s typically best to allow a professional to clean your gutters during the winter months.
Leaving your gutters unattended when they need to be fixed can also result in injury. Leaky or overflowing gutters can accumulate large icicles, and fluctuating temperatures can lead these icicles to drop on passers-by and cause serious harm.
Furthermore, heavy water damage can cause serious structural harm to your home and result in parts of your roof and gutter falling into or off of your home — putting residents or neighbors at risk of harm.
What Gutter Services Can Be Performed in the Winter?
It’s best practice to have your gutters cleaned twice a year. While it’s true that most homeowners have their gutters cleaned in the fall or spring, any number of gutter services can be performed in the winter — gutters can be cleaned, installed or repaired year-round.
Some services may be more difficult than others depending upon weather conditions and the given state of the gutters. Cleaning the gutters of a home nestled under several elm trees during a January freeze for the first time in a few years is going to be a more time-consuming process than a semiannual removal of debris from gutters that don’t have many trees nearby.
In Georgia, we don’t see too much snow in the winter, so most gutter cleaning and repair services can be completed during this season without issue. However, inclement weather or the outdoor thermometer dipping below freezing might impact your scheduled service. If you’re having someone clean your gutters in the winter, you should check how to reschedule your service in the event of bad weather.
Sometimes, emergency dictates that you have to clean your gutters in the winter. If a once-in-a-decade blizzard hits and your gutters are clogged when the snow melts, you’re going to need to get your gutters in working condition quickly to keep your house safe and free from leaks and water damage.
Contact A Better Gutter Cleaning in Atlanta, GA
Resolving gutter troubles in the middle of the winter can be exhausting and dangerous. You may spend hours navigating treacherous footing to clean out difficult-to-reach clogs — and that’s assuming that you don’t have to work around any ice dams or frozen downspouts. Cleaning out your gutters is demanding, physical labor and it requires a significant investment of time.
The best time to ensure your Georgia gutters are clean is right after the leaves have fallen which is usually around Dec 1st. If that’s already happened, the second-best time is today. Don’t put your home or yourself at risk — allow the courteous and professional specialists at A Better Gutter Cleaning to come service your gutters. We have a team of experienced professionals that will safely clear all obstructions from your gutters and ensure every downspout is ready for anything winter sends its way.
Our specialists come equipped to handle ice dams, squirrels’ nests, and more. Should they discover a ruptured or damaged gutter, they’ll have the parts on hand to complete a repair or replacement, saving you valuable time and peace-of-mind.
We take pride in each gutter we clean — come rain, sleet or snow — and we’ll keep you up to date with our text and email notification service so you can know when your specialist is on their way to unclog your gutters.
We’d be honored to help you protect your family during the winter season or any time of year. Contact us today for a free quote on gutter cleaning service in the Metro Atlanta area.
