Your roof can barely function without a good gutter system. What makes your gutters work properly and efficiently apart from the quality of the material and installation? It’s how well you, as the homeowner, clean and maintain the important components in the system.
If you want to keep your gutters working for a long time, there are a few basic maintenance tips you should know and apply.
Clean Your Gutters Regularly
Ideally, you should clean your gutters at least twice a year (autumn gutter cleaning should be a must), more so when there are a lot of trees hanging over your roof. You should also clear it up and inspect it for damage, but make sure to do it on a dry day when the bad weather has passed completely. Give special attention to possible clogs in the downspouts.
Clear Them Out
The first thing that you have to do is to go up on your roof (or at least set a ladder on your gutter and stand on the steps) and with a plastic bag in your hand, clean up the debris on the channels leading to the downspouts. Remove any decomposed pile of leaves and twigs to make sure nothing clogs up the system. Remove anything that’s clogging up your downspout, as well.
Search for Leaks
While clearing up (or after), check for any signs that your gutter may be failing and developing leaks. Look out for signs like cracks or holes in the gutter surface itself, or signs of wear in the caulk that binds the seams (if any). Damaged caulk can be chiseled and a fresh one reapplied, but any other damage should be left to reliable contractors like Muth & Company Roofing.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat
You should also wash down the gutters, preferably using a power washer.
A pressure washer won’t hurt them provided you’ve secured them with screws or new spikes. The real key is to avoid hitting them at too high an angle or you’ll blow the shingles off with a high-pressure stream of water.
WE INSTALL WORRY-FREE SEAMLESS GUTTERS
Muth & Company recommends seamless aluminum gutters for a number of reasons. Traditional gutter systems are made of several sections of gutter pieced together with connectors. The resulting seams weaken and cause leaks.
Seamless gutters are manufactured from one long, continuous piece of metal. The only seams are at the corners. This greatly reduces the possibility of leaks.
To create seamless gutters, Muth & Company brings our forming machine to your home, and our team crafts each segment on-site. This ensures they are custom fit to your home’s exact specifications. We also use hidden hangers that blend into the gutter for a clean look. Then we space the hangers closely together to increase gutter strength against the weight of snow and ice.