Why Invest in Gutter Guards: How Gutter Guards Benefit You and Your Home

Your home gutters are a lot more important than you probably realize. When your gutters collect debris and don’t allow water to flow correctly, plenty of problems can arise. There’s a simple solution, however, and that solution is gutter guards.

Gutter guards, as you would expect, are shielding material installed on the top of your gutters, made with holes small enough to allow water to enter and flow but not big enough to allow debris through. Gutter guarding can come in metal materials like aluminum, copper, or steel, or other materials like vinyl or PVC.

While the cost of gutter installation in specific to guarding may seem a little bit expensive, you only need to install them once. In the long run, guards offer several benefits that work together to save you the money, time, and effort it takes to maintain your gutters.

Gutter guarding acts best to block out large debris from entering your gutters. Once accumulated, all that debris can clog up the passageways, preventing water from being able to go anywhere, causing problems. Clogged downspouts can lead to overflowing that could damage your yard, wear away your home’s foundation, and possibly even flood your basement.

After a while, all that debris gets stuck on the inside of your gutters works it’s way into hard to reach places and is generally a pain to clean, sometimes even impossible. Deep cleaning your gutters will require you to seek out a professional, which uses up your money. If you have the guarding, all large debris will collect on top of it, making it significantly less of a hassle to clean on your own, cutting those professional cleaning costs out entirely.

When water collects and pools, or when damp debris piles up inside your gutters, rust can form a lot quicker on your gutters. This corrosion is not just worrisome when your downspouts are old, but it can be infuriating when you’ve spent money on new gutters, only to have them damaged due to collected debris. Gutter guarding keeps out the debris and prevents the clogs that create those pools of water, consequently increasing the lifespan of your gutters, which can be especially relieving when you’ve had new gutters recently installed.

In addition to rust, all that dampness that can accumulate in an unguarded gutter can cause algae, mold, and mildew can form and wear away at the sides of your roof. If you consider that excess damage, you can see how gutter guarding protects more than just your gutters and keeps the resale value of your home in a desirable place.

In the winters, any clogging in our gutters can be detrimental. When the backed-up water from melted snow freezes inside your gutters, it can form ice dams, which further blocks any water from flowing. Not only does this cause overflowing, but the weight of the ice can become so much that the gutters can separate from your house. With nowhere else for the water to go, there’s no choice except to seep into your home, causing leaks and who knows what other sorts of water damage.

Guarding your gutters won’t wholly remove ice buildup since the water is supposed to be able to flow through no matter what, but it will significantly reduce it. What it will eliminate are those clogs caused by large debris, which are what back up the water in the first place, and without those clogs, any ice buildup will be minimal since the water will be able to flow in a steady stream.

Besides mold and mildew, pools of water caused by clogs, especially stagnant water, will attract insects to breed, which can lead to insect infestations. Taking that risk of pooling water out of the equation will get rid of insect breeding. Shielding your gutters will also keep out rodents from working their way into your downspouts and nesting there.

If you or your neighbors are the types to set up bonfires in the backyard, you risk the potential danger of all the dry leaves and twigs in your gutters catching fire due to the floating embers. Once the debris in your gutters catches on fire, the flame can spread to your roof or possibly catch on curtains in open windows. Installing gutter guarding works as a form of fire prevention, amongst all of the other benefits it offers, by removing that accumulation of dry debris.

Gutter guards are essential; by blocking debris accumulation, they prevent clogs, reduce the risk of water damage, ice damage, infestations, and fires. The investment is worth it, so why should you wait?

Contact us today to schedule an inspection and see if guarding your gutters would be the best option for you.