How To Know When to Clean Your Gutters

You’re here because you want to know what can happen if you don’t clean you gutters.

How bad can it be?

Bad!

Here are 7 examples of damage that not cleaning your gutters can create and how something that might seem unnecessary in home maintenance is important for the protection of your property.

1. Blocked Gutters Create Damp and mould

Did you know:

Mould can start to grow inside and out of your home, due to water overflowing from a roof gutter?

That’s right. Gross.

Black mould is the scourge of the homeowner and this nasty stuff can start to blossom if you don’t clean out your gutters.

Water backs up and starts to seep into your roof and ceiling. If left unaddressed mould will grow and spread and then you have a much larger and quite costly problem to fix.

mouldy ceiling from blocked gutter

2. Blocked Gutters Create Leaky roofs and saggy ceilings

Before your ceilings get to the scary black mould stage, you’ll probably see this first:

A leaking roof or saggy ceiling.

As you can see from the image below, water has creeped into this property through the ceiling and it has created damage on the plaster.

A leak can also look like:

  • Dripping water
  • Saggy plaster
  • Warped plaster
  • Small stains

It’s essential to address these leaks before they create black mould. And they’re a serious warning sign that your gutters need cleaning to prevent any further damage.

a leak in a roof due to full gutters

3. Blocked Gutters Create Splash Back Damage

Any area exposed to the splash back of water suffers from penetrating damp.

This can include:

  • Peeling paint
  • Wood behind a wall

flooring that’s damaged by a roof leak

4. Blocked Gutters Create Rotting wood

Like above, if water leaks through your roof and ceiling it will drip onto the floor. Over time this will lead to water damage and any wooden areas could start to rot

water leak on a wooden floor

But it’s not just your floor!

The wood behind your walls can start to rot too. It depends where the leak occurs and what area of your property is affected.

Either are a pretty terrible option – what would you rather see damaged; your floor or your walls?

5.  Blocked Gutters Create Cracks in the foundation

Blocked gutters can also force water to flow directly onto the foundation wall of your home, that can cause major cracking.

a cracked wall due to water damage

6. Blocked Roof Gutters Can Ruin landscaping

Blocked roof gutters can destroy expensive landscaping as excess water that’s not channelled towards storm drains correctly can result in over-watered plants and unsightly dips in the topography of a yard.

Melbourne has seen some torrential rainstorms in the last few years and meteorologists expect more to come. Homes with blocked gutters could see significant damage to their landscaping if water is not efficiently redirected from a property.

a muddy garden from too much water

7. Blocked Gutters Create Insects

Insects and other pests may also occur inside and outside your home due to the build-up of debris and mould caused by blocked gutters.

insects in a home

Gutters that need cleaning can create a huge amount of damage to a home, so it’s essential you keep your gutters clean and free of blockages to prevent any of these happening to you.

At PorterVac, our experienced team of qualified roof tilers and roof gutter cleaning professionals can ensure your gutters are cleaned quicker, without any mess and at cheaper costs! We provide the total roof maintenance package in Melbourne as we provide professional roof gutter cleaning as well as roofing repairs.

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