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Fixing Leaks Where Gutter Joints Meet
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We Make Rapid Repairs On Any Gutter System
Another common problem is that over a period of time the back of many gutters slide around the nails holding it onto the fascia board of the house. Eventually, the back of the gutter may bulge out far enough to the point where it’s in front of the edge of the roof shingles, instead of behind them. In this case rain falling off of the shingles pours behind the back of the gutter, not into it, and this usually leads over time to water rotted fascia boards, soffits and occasionally even to leaks within the house. Fixing leaks where gutter joints meetEven seamless gutters have joints where the gutter meets a downspout or if the gutter has to go around a corner. Over time the sealant may decay enough that water steadily drips at these meeting points. We see these and many other gutter problems every day, and we carry all of the tools and equipment with us needed to make these repairs when we are at your home. Be an educated consumer – here are more ways you can protect your homeHome owners should not let leaves, debris, pine needles, and so forth pile up on their roof and stay there for long periods of time. We urge home owners to have leaf piles regularly removed if they accumulate again and again. Why? Because leaf piles may look harmless, but they aren’t. The top surface of the pile which you see from the ground may look dry the day after a rain. However, a pile of leaves insulates the leaves on the bottom from the drying effects of the sun on the top. What this means is that the leaves on the bottom of the pile stay wet for very, very long periods of time because they are shielded by the leaves above them. Shingles and plywood are wonderful products, but they were never meant to have water lying on them for months on end. Shingles and plywood roofs are sloped so that they shed water off of themselves, and they then dry out, which keeps them healthy for years. Over time, the high level of moisture at the bottom of a leaf pile means that the shingles and plywood never really dry out completely. The trapped moisture will penetrate the shingles and over months and months will begin to weaken and then to rot the underlying plywood. Left untouched, water under the leaves can eventually leak right through the shingles and plywood - and also through the ceilings of rooms below - causing ugly brown water marks on the plaster board as well as other problems like mold infestation. Also, sometimes we don’t realize too just how heavy a gutter full of leaves and water is. A 50-foot long gutter that is full can weigh around 50 or so pounds. When the wind blows hard and buffets the house, the heavy gutter may jiggle slightly, which over time can pull some gutter spikes loose, which means the heavy gutter can separate from the house, allowing rain to run over the fascia and cascade down, instead of being captured inside the gutter and safely directed into the downspout. If enough of the spikes become loose over time, the gutter will simply fall off of the house altogether. Common downspout problems All too often on new or relatively new homes, the size of the gutters and the number of downspouts, etc. are not proportionate to the large roof area draining into them. When this happens, so much water falls into the gutter that it fills up quickly and water simply spills over the front lip and/or backs up into the house. Sometimes, too, we have seen where volumes of rain water are so large and travel down the roof so fast, some of the water simply shoots right over top of the gutter during heavy precipitation. This can be a difficult situation to resolve because contributing factors like a steep roof angle cannot be inexpensively changed of course. Often, the installation of splash guards or diverters can help. Diverters are pieces of metal secured into the roof length-wise so that when rushing water strikes them, the water is diverted in a helpful direction. Often the diverter is positioned so that water flow is re-directed toward the closest downspout for instance. The problem of overfilling and/or rain water overshooting a gutter is especially frequent on newer homes, where some builders do not seem to have thought through how much guttering and what kind of guttering will really be needed to handle the run off from large areas of roof. Someone might say, ‘well, today’s roofs are probably no bigger than those of a decade ago.’ That might or might not be so, but new homes often have far more roof valleys than older homes do, which means that water is draining off of two or more sections of the roof into just one gutter (and often a small 3 inch one at that), and the builder did not calculate whether a small gutter has the capacity to handle the amount of water hitting it all at the same time. We use gutter screws, not spikes, for greater holding power The problem with dented gutters Additional gutter repairs we regularly do:
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As surprising as it may seem, improperly sloped gutters are very common throughout the Triangle. A gutter run that is slanted away from the downspout, instead of towards it, creates a standing pool of water in one end of the gutter. Instead of water pouring towards the downspout and then down and away from the house, a permanent puddle inside the gutter is formed. We see at least one improperly sloped gutter run in about 20% of all the homes we service.
