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Gutter Installation and Maintenance: Essential Tips for Homeowners
Gutters are the unsung heroes of your roofing system. People rarely think about them when doing roofing maintenance or repairs. However, without gutters, your home and landscaping would not last as long as they do, especially with the abundant rain in Orange County, NC. Hence, gutter installation and maintenance should be essential whenever you maintain or replace your roof.
Gutters collect rainwater and drive it away from your roof and property, preventing water damage. They are made from aluminum, steel, copper, or vinyl and often last up to 30 years. If you want to ensure your gutters last and save you a costly replacement or repair down the line, there are a few tips for installing and maintaining your gutters you can keep in mind whether you’re looking for seamless gutters installation, maintenance, or replacement.

4 reasons to care about your gutters regularly
The importance of gutters relies mainly on the protection they provide to your house from water, preventing damage to your walls, basements, and roof.
Enhance the health of your foundations.
Gutters and downspouts run water away from your home foundations, preventing damage and ensuring their structural integrity. If your gutters are damaged or the downspouts are clogged, rainwater could start overflowing the system and ponding around your foundations, compromising the building’s safety in the long term. Hence, you should ensure your gutter installation and maintenance are done correctly to avoid mistakes and damages.
Keep your sidings appealing and in good condition.
Without gutters, rain could drip beneath your roof and slide down your walls and ceilings, causing stains, cracks, and peeling of the paint over time.
Although these seem like mainly aesthetic issues, if you neglect these repairs for too long, water damage could spread to other structures in your house and compromise its integrity, resulting in costly and time-consuming repairs in the future. Thus, besides ensuring a correct installation and regular maintenance, you should also consider gutter protection systems to prevent overflowing and leaks.
Protect your yards and landscaping.
Uncontrolled or excessive water runoff can erode your soil and damage your plants, costing you time and money if you let them overwet for long periods, especially during summer when precipitation increases. Gutters direct the water away from your property, usually into a drainage location that later connects to your local water treatment plant, preventing water excess in your yard.
Seamless gutter installation can enhance your property’s rainwater protection. These gutters suffer less from leaks than traditional ones, reducing the need for maintenance and the chances of gutter damage, resulting in overflows, leaks, and replacements that may leave your yard unprotected for a few months.
Lowering energy waste and costs
Gutters ensure your roof stays insulated, preventing air from escaping and maintaining proper ventilation flows and indoor temperatures. This happens because they prevent snow and water from building up on your roof, trapping heat inside your home. If you’re concerned about your home’s energy consumption, ensuring proper gutter installation and maintenance is crucial to enhance it.

How to care for your gutters: 5 tips for installing and maintaining gutters
The importance of gutters in your roofing system can highlight a concern you may not have considered before: you must ensure your roofing contractors will do a quality job. You shouldn’t downplay this concern because unqualified or unreliable roofers may make mistakes or cut corners that will later result in repairs and headaches for you.
To help you avoid unpleasant surprises in the future, we’ve gathered a few tips on how to ensure your roofer installs and maintains your gutters correctly.
Ensure the gutters and downspouts are placed correctly.
If your gutter system does not have enough downspouts or the roof doesn’t place them down in the right places, water will not run off through the gutters and may pool or overflow, causing leaks and damage to your home’s siding, ceilings, and foundations. Likewise, this standing water can attract insects into your gutters, compromising your house’s sanity. Incorrect placement can also erode your soil due to excessive water runoff in the yard.
Reliable gutter installation and maintenance will also place your gutters under or behind your roof’s drip edge so water can run off and drip directly into the gutters. If they’re not aligned with the drip edge, rainwater can drip behind the gutters, damaging the roof decking and your walls.
Choose the correct gutter size.
Gutter size refers to the width of the gutter’s top and determines its capacity to collect rainwater. If gutters are too narrow, they may overflow during heavy storms, leading to inefficient drainage that can damage them and cause leaks. So, when considering your gutters’ size, you should consider the average rainfall in your location, your roof size and pitch, and any areas that could overflow due to angles or valleys.
Most houses use five- and six-inch-width gutters, but it’s recommended that you consult with a professional roofing contractor if you need a larger gutter. A seamless gutter installation can also be a great choice to ensure the gutters are the proper size since they’re customized to your roof, and their lack of seams reduces the chances of cracks and leaks.
Place them on the correct pitch.
Gutters may appear at your house level, but they’re slightly pitched to help water run through them and slide down the drainages. This is why gutter installation and maintenance professionals often use a level when installing them to ensure they’re steep enough to ensure water flow. If the gutters are not pitched sufficiently, the water will sit on them, and if they’re too steep, rainwater can travel too fast and overflow the system.
Regularly clean your gutters and downspouts.
The importance of gutter cleaning can’t be denied. Scoop out leaves and debris that have fallen in your gutters, which can slow drainage and cause overflows, and flush them with your hose or pressure washer to ensure they’re thoroughly cleaned. Inspect your downspouts to see if there are clogs due to leaves and debris that may cause water back-ups or spilling over the sides of your gutters. You can use plumber snakes or pressure washers to clear out your downspouts.
Although you often can reach your gutters using a ladder, if you’re unfamiliar with working at heights and haven’t cleaned gutters before, it can be better to leave professional gutter installation and maintenance services to handle these tasks to protect your safety and prevent accidents.
Invest in gutter protection systems.
Gutter protectors such as guards, screens, and filters may seem optional, but these systems can save money and time when maintaining your gutters. Gutter guards prevent debris from falling into your gutters, reducing the frequency of maintenance, preventing clogs and overflows, and making gutter cleaning more manageable and less time-consuming. Thus, investing in gutter protection systems enhances your gutter’s longevity, paying off the initial costs.
Although some gutter damages and repairs are out of your control, ensuring your roofer installs your gutters without cutting corners or making mistakes and regularly cleaning them will ensure you don’t have to call your roofing contractor every three months to repair the gutters. Hence, if you want to ensure your gutter installation and maintenance is a high-quality job that will last for years, contact Advanced Building & Roofing.
Install, repair, and maintain your gutters with roofers you can trust in Orange County.
At Advanced Roofing, we pride ourselves in the unmatched attention to detail we dedicate to every project, from replacing gutters to installing flat roofs in commercial buildings. And our customers won’t tell you otherwise. All of them were satisfied with the thoroughness and professionalism they received.
If you’re looking for a new seamless gutter installation or want to check on them to ensure everything is okay, we are ready to help you and leave you with the gutter system you deserve. Call us today (252) 717-7176 to get your quote!