The High Cost Of Clogged Gutters

For most homes and businesses, there are chores you know you must do regularly, like taking out the trash and replacing the air filters. Other chores tend to fall to the wayside. One dangerous situation where that tends to happen is with gutter cleaning. When that maintenance slips to the back of our minds the consequences are often severe. Clogged gutters pose dangers to property and personal safety. Rather than clean them out yourself, it’s better to let a professional handle it.

They have only one purpose, to guide water away from the area where they’re attached. After a downpour or snow melt the water needs to go somewhere. Rather than gathering on the roof and around the foundation of the building, the gutters guide the water further away from the structure, on a designated path. It isn’t enough to have them attached to the home; they also need to function correctly. If they’re clogged, they can’t do that. They get filled up with leaves, pine needles, tiny sticks, you name it. When enough debris gathers, the sole function is rendered useless.

Clogged gutters will overflow, causing water to fall around the foundation. Over time, the soil will erode causing the land around the structure to slope, eventually cracking the walls and floors. It can also eat away at the foundation itself. The pooled water can also destroy your garden or lawn, drowning anything you’d hoped might grow. Should your home have a basement, the water will take the path of least resistance, find its way in, and flood the structure. This leads to unsanitary conditions and the potential for an electrical fire. The stagnant water can also serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which lay their eggs in standing water. Those bugs aren’t just pesky. They carry significant diseases like West Nile Virus and Zika. Bees and wasps are also attracted to the moist matter accumulating there.

The weight of all that debris and clogged water can eventually tear them away from your roof, potentially causing thousands of dollars in damage. If they are clogged in the winter, it is a recipe for disaster. Georgia gets cold enough for ice dams to develop and with those, an incredible amount of weight. Again, this causing them to pull away from the house as well. The exposed fascia can start rotting, and moisture can seep into your walls and develop mold. This also creates a prime location for a termite infestation, exposing one to another expensive proposition.

The debris accumulating in the gutters can also create a significant fire hazard. Just as Fort Valley gets cold in the winter, it gets hot in the summer. FEMA says intense heat is enough to distort them or even spark a fire.

To clean them yourself, you have to climb up dangerously high on a ladder. The average person doesn’t have much experience with stabilizing at those heights, which increases the risk of a serious fall. Leaning the ladder against the gutters can wind up damaging them before nature has a chance to. Blindly reaching your hands into them is a risk in and of itself. You may find yourself in the path of stinging insect, or, worse, you can threaten an entire nest and wind up being swarmed. That’s not a pleasant thought twenty or thirty feet in the air.

When gutters clog up, they can develop subtle leaks that the untrained eye may not notice. If you have an expert clean them out for you, they can monitor the functionality and make sure everything is attached firmly to the building. If anything is off, preemptive measures can be taken to avoid disaster. Another benefit of having a professional company handle your cleaning is that you can get on a regular schedule. Upkeep will be at the top of someone else’s list, even if it falls to the bottom of yours.

First Class Pressure Washing brings years of experience handling gutters in both commercial and residential settings. We know what to look out for and how to handle any complications. Each property, and customer is different, and we won’t call a job finished until everything is completely cleaned out to its prime condition and working correctly. Our company is made up of local veterans who are fully licensed and insured, and everyone who works for us is professionally trained, drug tested, and background checked. You can trust us as your neighbors and community members, and you can trust us to do the best work of anyone in Georgia.