Your Gutter Needs Spring Cleaning, Too: Preparing Gutters for the Spring Rain

February 20, 2020/in Updates /by Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters LLC

Spring is round the idiomatic corner—by mid-March, the weather will begin to warm and the icy ground will begin to thaw, all signs that spring is nearly upon us. The season marks flowers blooming, animals coming out of hibernation, and the weather becoming sunnier.

It also means spring showers and, sometimes, heavy rain. With your property just having gone through the harsh effects of winter, it requires some work to protect it from damage that heavy spring rain may bring.

Preventive maintenance of your roof and gutter system ensures that they’re ready to protect your home from any damage brought by rain. If you’re not sure where to begin, our metal roof specialists at Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters are happy to give you tips on how to prepare your gutters for the spring rain.

Spring Maintenance for Your Gutter

Your gutter is your first line of defense against the rain. It catches rainwater sliding off the roof and redirects it to a designated location, preventing water from leaking into your interior and creating costly damage. Your gutter system also prevents mildew and mold from forming inside your house, making your home more comfortable.

When gutters aren’t working properly, the leaks can damage your home through soil erosion, which results in damage to the foundation of the property. When not properly maintained, the gutter itself will sag or warp, affecting the appearance of your home.

Checking Your Gutter System

Before spring starts, do a visual check of your roof and gutter system to identify issues such as:

Accumulated Debris: The winter weather could have caused dirt and grime to accumulate in your gutter.
Leaks: Excessive snowfall and ice that collected on your roof over winter can corrode, crack, bend, or cause your gutter to sag.
Overhanging Trees: Any branches from overhanging trees can damage your roof and cause gutter clogs.
Security: Gently tug on your gutter to make sure it doesn’t move. The gutter should be tightly secured to the side of your home so that it doesn’t come loose during a torrential downpour.

While you can check for issues on your own, using a ladder to do a visual check, safety is always a consideration. For safety purposes, and so that you get a thorough assessment, you may want to hire specialists to do a complete inspection of your roof and gutter system, instead.

Spring Cleaning Your Gutters

Once you’ve identified the issues of your gutters, it’s time to conduct preventative maintenance on them.

Clean Out Debris

Head up your roof to remove foreign objects like branches, pine needles, sticks, and other forms of debris. Again, for your safety and a more efficient cleaning process, hire a professional to clean the debris and trim overhanging trees, as necessary.

Upgrade Your Roofing System

If your roof and gutter look worse for the wear, it’s time to replace them. Choose metal roofs since they can withstand harsh conditions, from heavy rain to hail. It is also a more cost-efficient option, in the long run, since it typically can last from 30 to 50 years with minimal maintenance.

Upgrade Your Gutter and Roofing System Before the Spring Showers

Upgrade your roofing system and get seamless gutter protection before the start of spring rains. At Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters, our team of installers gets the work done without disrupting your daily activities at home.

To get a free quote and assessment, call us at 877-594-7449.

How Gutters Help Protect Your Home’s Foundation

February 20, 2020/in Updates /by Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters LLC

Some people think that a roof gutter’s only purpose is to make a house look better. In reality, a roof gutter serves a much more important purpose other than being a decorative element for your home.

Roof gutters are there to direct rainwater off your roof, and away from your home’s foundation.

Rainwater’s Effect on Your Home’s Foundations

If rainwater from a heavy downpour isn’t channeled away, the water can become a powerful surge that pummels the ground right beside your home’s foundation. Rainwater doesn’t have to come in a heavy downpour—even gentle rain showers can damage your foundation if they happen frequently enough.

If a lot of water pools at the base of your home often, the soil around your foundation becomes saturated. The wet soil then exerts pressure on the foundation, causing it to buckle inward and eventually crack. After the soil dries, the pressure is lessened. When these differences in pressure happen enough times, your home’s foundations will shift, crack, and become uneven — or all three happen. Once the foundations are compromised, your home could become flooded by the next rainfall or literally fall through the ground.

Signs of Foundation Damage

Signs that your home’s foundations have been affected may not show until some time, depending on how much and how often rainwater pools around them. Some signs include mold growth in your home’s interior walls, flooding of the basement, warping, cracking or buckling of basement walls, and misalignment of doors, chimneys, or floors.

What You Should Do

Now that you know the importance of your roof gutters, make sure to have a complete system of them, and that they work. Your roof gutters should completely divert all the runoff from your roof away from your home and into a working drainage system. These are the measures you should take to ensure you have a first line of defense in protecting your home’s foundations:

1. Add Any Missing Gutters to Your Roofline

Install gutters all along your home’s roofline—make no exceptions and leave no gaps. Never forget that rainwater can not only seep into the ground and affect your home’s foundation, but it can also wash away your landscaping. And depending on the damage, this could cost a lot for repairs.

2. Maintain Your Gutters

Be sure to replace any bent or broken sections of your existing gutters. Any part of your gutter system that spills water on the ground will eventually cause the destruction of your home’s foundation. You must make sure that your gutters don’t get clogged with fallen leaves or other debris; clogged gutters are like having no gutters at all. Check your gutters regularly, and remove any dried leaves and debris that get into any of them. Clogged gutters can also attract pests. To prevent clogging, enhance your gutter system with a roof gutter leaf protection component.

Never take your gutters for granted; they’re your cost-effective first line of defense against foundation damage. Don’t put off repairing them or cleaning the accumulated debris off of them, or protect them from clogging with our special add-on system. Having and maintaining an effective roof gutter system is cheaper and less of a hassle than repairing your home’s foundation.

Protect your home with the best gutter protection systems from Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters, LLC. As LeafLock-trained installers, we can seamlessly install new gutter protection systems over your full-sized gutters to prevent clogs. Let us help you avoid costly damage to your home, with our durable, worry-free, and maintenance-free LeafLock gutter leaf protection system. Call us today!

The Price Is Not Right: The Costs of Having Damaged or Clogged Gutters

January 28, 2020/in Updates /by Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters LLC

Gutters don’t only redirect rainwater off your roof. They do much more than that. And it’s the latter that makes the stronger claim for why you should have working gutters all the time. ;

Rain gutters serve as an important protective measure against water damage, which could incur expensive repairs — or medical bills. Learn the issues and costs of having damaged gutters, clogged gutters, or none at all.

Pests

If your home has conventional gutters, leaves, dirt, twigs, and other debris can accumulate in them. The bunched-up debris can then host a variety of pests like rats, venomous spiders, venomous snakes, wasps, fleas, ticks, bats, termites, and bees.

At best, these critters can be a minor annoyance. At worst, any of them can send you or a member of your household to the ER. For example, if anyone in your home gets stung by a bee and they happen to be allergic to bee stings, you’ll have to rush them to the ER if you don’t have an Epi-pen handy. The cost of their treatment will depend on whether they have medical insurance.

With medical insurance, bee sting treatment can cost nearly $2000; without medical insurance, treatment can go as high as $12,000, like in the case of one woman in Florida. Don’t forget that whether you or anyone is stung or bitten by these pests or not, you still have to call a pest control expert. Depending on the pest, the severity of the infestation, and their location pest control services could cost anywhere from $250 to $1000.

Soil Erosion

Apart from potentially harboring pests, a clogged gutter can cause water to drench your landscaping. Rainwater that flows to your garden unguided can remove the topsoil and drown your plants and flowers. If you fail to de-clog your gutters, you’ll have to call in a landscaping expert periodically to redo your landscape. Replacing the washed-off topsoil and the damaged or dead plants and flowers could cost you $50 to $100 an hour for labor, and another $4 to $12 per square foot. If the landscaping damage is extensive, you could be looking at $3000 to $15,000 with an additional $200 per hour for labor and materials on top of that. Landscaping costs due to clogged gutters is no laughing matter.

Home Repair & Renovation

Effective gutter protection systems keep water away from your roof shingles. Should your gutters fail in that, water can end up standing around your roof’s shingles, then eventually find its way into the roof support structure. The water can then seep into the attic, pool in your ceiling, and leak through it. Water damage and mold will surely follow.

During winter, a more serious issue can result from a clogged gutter: ice dams. Ice dams happen when warm air rises from your heated home and melts the snow on top of your roof. The water then freezes again when it reaches the outer shingles. The ice dams result in similar damage as standing water on your roof.

Gutters that fail to redirect water to drains can also cause water to pool in your basement. This is dangerous as the water will not only damage heating systems but also destroy the very foundations of your home. Depending on the severity of the damage, home repairs can cost you about $4000 to $18,500. You can get a more exact estimate here.

Our advice is for you to get gutter protection systems from Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters. We install gutters onsite and match our gutters with your home color. You have the option to get a gutter protection system to prevent debris from falling into your gutters.

Rest assured that with our product, you’ll never have to worry about clogged gutters again. Avoid the huge costs of hiring pest control and landscape or home repairs. Contact us today and get a free quote.

Protect Yourself from the Dangers of Gutter Cleaning

December 4, 2019/in Updates /by Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters LLC

Gutter maintenance is one of the cornerstones of keeping your home safe and dry. Time and the elements lead to the accumulation of debris from the environments, such as dirt and mulch. This leads to blockage, which eventually damage your roof.

Without gutter protection from leaves, you may have to hire potentially expensive professional cleaners or do it yourself.

But gutter cleaning can get dangerous, so before you haul your ladder out of your garage, make sure you’re armed with the following advice.

Always Use Safety Gear

You may be tempted to just climb your ladder and start working, but putting on the proper gear can prevent injuries and even save your life. Make sure you’re wearing these essential safety gear:

Work boots: Helps prevent slipping and provide protection from electrical shocks.
Safety glasses: Inexpensive wraparound safety glasses prevent eye damage from debris and particles.
Work gloves: Gloves made of leather, cloth, or similarly tough material keep your hands safe from sharp objects and bites.
Respirator: Moist leaf clutter often hosts mold and other fungi and inhaling their spores could poison you. Wearing a respirator will keep you from breathing in these and other harmful particles.

Beware of Vermin

Unchecked, your leafy gutters could become home to a host of vermin. Some of them damage your home over time and others can attack you and potentially injure you. Beware of the following creatures that may be lurking in your gutters:

Bees: Because of their relative shelter, your gutters are an ideal location for beehives. Determine if bees have infested your gutters before you start mucking them out, especially if you’re allergic to bee stings.
Rats: The abundance of warm leaf litter and edible plant matter can attract rodents to your gutters. If you aren’t careful, they could bite or scratch, which may call for medical attention.
Snakes: Rats and other rodents can draw snakes to hunt in your gutters. Always consult animal services if you’ve spotted a snake on your eaves or suspect that one is living in your gutters.

Beware of Falling

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) labels falling as one of the Fatal Four and was the cause of death of 39.2 percent of workplace fatalities in 2017.

Reduce your risk by following these steps:

Check your ladder for damage or flaws
Make sure your ladder is in a stable position before climbing
When possible, find another person who can hold the ladder, so it doesn’t topple
Wear safety gear that could reduce injuries from falls, such as a hard hat and boots with good grip

Look Out for Electric Wires

According to OSHA, electrocutions are another leading cause of death. If a live electrical wire, like power lines or your home’s wiring, is touching your gutters, your body forms the perfect conduit between you and a metallic ladder.

Before you touch your gutter, check the exterior and interior of your home and see if any exposed wiring or electrical device is touching them.

Cleaning your gutters is an important part of ensuring the integrity of your home, doing it on your own carries a lot of potential dangers. Although you can always prepare to reduce the risk of injury, you should find more innovative ways that could prevent your gutters from accumulating debris at all. By doing so, you’ll prevent any risk of harm both to yourself and your home.

Get Seamless Gutter Protection Today

Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters helps you avoid encounters with falls, snakes, and electrocution by installing high-quality gutter protection. With our gutter protection systems, you don’t have to worry debris building up, reducing the need for maintenance.

Read our glowing testimonials today and discover how we’ve helped other homeowners.

Pest 101: The Critters that Get into Your Gutters

November 25, 2019/in Updates /by Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters LLC

When it comes to your gutters, leaves aren’t the only problem. If left unchecked and neglected, the dead leaves, pine needles, dirt and other debris that collect in your gutters attract bigger pests, and with them come bigger problems. Get to know the different critters that could get into your home’s gutters.

Mosquitoes

Once your gutters are blocked by leaves, twigs and similar debris, these will hold water when the next rain comes. Even if the standing water doesn’t do significant damage, it offers a perfect mosquito breeding ground. These bugs may pose a minor annoyance, but these days, you should take mosquito infestations more seriously as they were found to carry the dreaded Zika virus in 2017.

While there aren’t any new Zika cases this year, there’s been an alarming rise of West Nile Virus cases from mosquito infestations.

Birds

Gutters that aren’t cleared of leaves and other debris attract birds. Piles of leaves and twigs are the preferred nesting material for birds, and they will do exactly that.

Birds don’t really pose a danger to you or your family, but their acidic droppings can slowly corrode metal gutters. When birds nest in your gutters, get them out ASAP. Should you allow them to take up residence, and they spawn any young, you can count on a new generation of birds to instinctively return to the safety of their gutter-home. We’ll also list another problem that comes with birds in a moment.

Bees

It’s possible that bees will take up residence in your gutters. Bees will always seek out any shelter that will protect them from the elements and conceal them from predators. If there aren’t any birds that have claimed your gutters, bees are one of the next likely candidates.

Bees can be dangerous, especially if you have family members who are allergic to bee stings. Should any bees inhabit your gutters, don’t attempt to remove them yourself as there are legalities you may not be aware of regarding this. Consult a pest control expert.

Squirrels

Pests that shack up in dirty gutters aren’t only of the feathered sort, but also the furry kind. Like birds, squirrels make nests in piles of leaves in your gutters. Their constant scurrying about can cause serious damage to your gutters and roof over time.

Rats

Another problematic pest that can take up residence in your gutters is rats. These rodents will take to your debris-clogged gutter as it can provide them with shelter and warmth. Rats also enjoy the bonus of being close to your home and will get inside eventually to look for food.

Snakes

What do the presence of birds, squirrels, rats and other gutter pests attract? Snakes. You know you’ve neglected your gutter debris problem for too long when more pests move in, and snakes enter the picture.

Keeping your gutters clear and free of fallen leaves, stray pine cones or any other debris is a task you should never put off for very long. It only takes a few leaves to clog your gutters and you’ll soon have a domino effect of pests.

Avoid the dangerous, difficult work of constantly cleaning out your gutters, and just go for the best solution: get our roof gutter protection from Bruce Andrews Seamless Gutters. Trust us, with this gutter protection system, you’ll never have to worry about clogged gutters, and never have to spend hundreds of dollars for pest control, too.

Call us today at 877-594-7449, or you can set up an appointment with us.