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Benefits of Gutter Guards Which Homeowners Might Not Be Aware Of

roofer-admin • Jul 31, 2019

If you are a homeowner, making minor upgrades and bringing improvements and conveniences into your home from time to time is probably a regular part of your life. It is also a very important process, as homes, like any other long term investment, need to be carefully taken care of. One important improvement you can add to your home is gutter guards. As the name suggests, these are guarding materials which can be attached on top of your gutters that allow water to go through it but keeps large solid debris out. Gutter guards may be made out of vinyl, PVC, steel, aluminum, and even copper.

There is some dispute as to whether guards are worth the cost and time spent on installing them. Ask any roofer and we’ll agree that the benefits of a gutter guard far outweigh the cost. Here are all the benefits that an adequately installed gutter guard will bring to your house.

Clogged Gutter Relief

The most obvious function and benefit that a gutter guard provides is preventing large debris, such as leaves and other forms of debris, from entering into your gutters and clogging it. This saves you from a myriad of problems which can occur due to clogged drains such as flooded basements, mold and yard erosion, etc. It can also cause water to accumulate which provides insects such as mosquitos a chance to breed in your home. Hence the presence of these contraptions can help prevent infestation and various other problems.

Gutter Cleaning

If the drains in your house do not have a gutter guard installed, they will collect far more debris and will require cleaning more often than if you had it installed. This cleaning will probably need to be done by a professional and hence will require a significant amount of money and time. This time and money spent can be significantly reduced if you have a gutter guard installed. It will prevent large debris from going into your drains and clogging them. Some debris will collect on the guard itself over time, but the cleaning of the guard is far easier, far less expensive and far less time consuming than unclogging large pieces of debris out of a gutter. The installment of a gutter guard does cost some money, but it is a one-time investment that is saving you money in the long run.

Gutter Freezing Problem

If you are living in some of the colder parts of the world where the air temperature alone is enough to freeze any water present out in the open then this is a phenomenon that you will be aware of. Accumulated water in the gutter will freeze during wintertime and cause what is known as an ice dam. This can eventually lead to water seeping into your household, causing all kinds of unpredictable damage. In this scenario, a gutter guard can help prevent this catastrophe before it even occurs. While it cannot directly prevent ice dams, it does prevent leaves and other large debris from falling into the gutter and prevents clogging. This very clogging causes the pool of water that later freeze to form ice dams. Hence installing a gutter guard can fix the ice dam problem at the source.

Prevent Gutter Rust

Gutter guards are an excellent long term investment. As we have already explained, they save the cost of cleaning the gutters frequently, but in addition, they extend the life of your system as well. When debris such as leaves and pines etc. which are laden with moisture sit inside your gutters for an extended period of time, they speed up the process of rusting and corroding drastically, causing the life span of your gutter system to become increasingly short. This is why the guards are specifically made to prevent such debris from falling in and hence prevent this premature rusting process and increase the life expectancy of your drains, adding to the long term investment scope of these guards.

In conclusion, these guards are an excellent investment from a homeowner’s standpoint and can provide a wide range of benefits that you would probably have not even considered until now. So, while they do seem like an unnecessary hassle at first, this one-time investment can prove really useful and beneficial in several different ways and may even protect you from some horrific disasters that you did not see coming.

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