Downspout Maintenance
Properly functioning gutter downspouts are crucial to maintaining your home. An improperly installed gutter and downspout system can cause extensive water damage, flood your basement, and wreak havoc on pricey home landscaping. Fortunately, if you live in the San Bernardino-Riverside area, Carranza and Bermudez Triangular Seamless Rain Gutters can help.
With that in mind, the following list highlights the top three reasons why you should consider hiring a professional to maintain your gutters and downspouts today.
1. Lasting home exterior protection
Water invasion, especially over the long term, is one of the most intrusive and avoidable forms of damage a home can endure. If your current gutter and downspout setup is not doing its job, you could be facing costly repairs to not only your roof and foundation but exterior siding as well. Invasive rainwater from failing or improperly installed gutters and downspouts is especially troubling if your siding is composed of a stone or wood-based material. The resultant damage is tremendously expensive to fix.
Gutter and downspouts that are out of whack mean that water is flowing down your siding and not through the rain channeling system itself. Over time, invasive rainwater weakens your siding, causes mold and rot to fester, produces large cosmetically abhorrent cracks along the surface of your stone-based siding, and more. While vinyl siding may offer a bit more protection, water can still find its way underneath this material and cause damage, particularly if a flawed gutter system has already rendered considerable roof damage.
2. Roof preservation
No matter what kind of roof you have, if your gutters are clogged or have fallen into general disrepair, rainwater invariably begins seeping under your shingles, damaging your roof's soffit and fascia. You may even find water starting to permeate into the attic, causing rot to the wood floor and beams supporting your roof.
Encroaching water attributed to failing gutters and downspouts weakens your roof while vastly shortening its useful life. Upgrading gutters and downspouts that are malfunctioning or have fallen into disrepair is the best and most cost-effective preventative maintenance step you can take to prevent serious problems like mold infestation and complete roof replacement down the line.
3. Foundation protection
Your gutters channel water into the downspouts, which direct water away from your home's foundation. Presuming your gutters are free of clogs and correctly installed, downspouts are by and large the most reliable way of protecting your foundation.
If your gutters are not functioning as they should, water begins to pool at the bottom of the downspout, as it fails to usher water away from your foundation. When this happens, the accumulated water starts to erode the soil at the base of your home, damaging expensive landscape design, and it can even cause the foundation to crack before water floods your basement.
Deferred gutter and downspout maintenance is a serious matter, commonly resulting in mold infestation and expensive water damage repairs. The best practice in avoiding catastrophic failure is to hire a qualified professional to keep your gutters clear and replace damaged or improperly installed components of your system before water invasion ensues.
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