As homeowners, we understand the importance of having gutters and downspouts in every house. Aside from the fact that it improves the aesthetics to the overall look of a house roof, it generally protects the foundation and structure durability of a house. It conveys water off the roof and away from the foundation.
On the other hand, proper maintenance of gutters and downspouts is needed to ensure that they do the job for a long period of time. This is because uncleaned and unmaintained gutters are notorious for accumulating and collecting rainwater, dirt, debris, and other outdoor elements that can cause deterioration and shorten the lifespan and durability of the house roof.
Aside from regular cleaning and maintenance of the roof, gutters, and downspouts, installing a gutter guard or leaf guard is a good solution to ensure that gutters would work as they should. And in this blog, we will share with you why installing and using a gutter guard is beneficial and important.
Save Time And Money
Gutter guards prevent dirt, debris, and leaves from accumulating in the gutter and clogging up the system. Without a gutter guard, issues may persist which may lead to a faster deterioration of gutters—making you spend more money on cleaning and maintenance than you should. For example, gutters have a lifespan of approximately 20 years (or probably more) when maintained correctly. But of course, we cannot always guarantee everything knowing that the weather changes consecutively.
But when you install and use a gutter guard, you’re increasing the lifespan of gutters for them to function as they should for many years.
Prevent Animal And Insect Infestations
Animals like rats and birds, and insects like bees, may use your gutter as their territory or nesting area which affects the function of your gutter system. And, obviously, you don’t want that to happen, especially when the water from the heavy rain is not drained in your roof because the gutters are not working. Thus, these animals and insects can also contribute to clogging.
But when you use gutter guards, it prevents these animals and insects to use your gutters as their nesting area. More importantly, there’s very minimal chance of stagnant water sitting in your gutters.
Reduce The Difficulty Of Frequent Cleaning
As mentioned earlier, without gutter guards installed in your gutter, there’s a higher chance for dirt, leaves, and other outdoor elements to accumulate. And this accumulation requires you to do more often cleaning than the regular maintenance. It simply would consume more time, energy, and money. And to add to that, rusting and/or decaying of the gutters may happen earlier than its natural process.
So gutter guard helps prolong the lifespan of your gutters and let them function as they should without too many disturbances.
Reduced Ice Dam Formation And Gutter Freezing
If you’re located in a place where snowing is part of the weather, you’d understand the inconvenience of ice dam formation and gutter freezing. This is simply because the winter season is a piece of bad news for gutters. But with gutter guards, these incidents can be avoided due to the fact that ice won’t sit around in the gutter itself but instead would accumulate on the surface of the gutter guards which makes it easier to clean.
Fire Protection
Houses located in areas prone to bushfires or even simply in a crowded location where when a fire started (which no one hopes to happen) it would rapidly spread, gutter guards offer added fire protection. The reason behind it is that since there’s no accumulation of dried leaves, twigs, or branches in your gutter and downspouts, it won’t have contact with embers that can make the fire spread faster.
Improved Flow Of Water In The Gutters
A gutter guard helps to prevent larger objects such as debris to get in the gutter which can affect the water flowing in the water—that when too much of this debris or dirt accumulates, it can clog the waterway.
And lastly, overflowing gutters because of blockage would have a drastic effect on the foundation or structure of the house because the gutters are not functioning as they should which is to lead the water off the roof and away from the foundation of the house. In short, gutter guards help prevent blockage from happening.
Gutter Guard Is Important Because…
Nobody wants any house to collapse due to a weak foundation, right? So, to avoid this from happening, the ways of improving and regular maintenance must be followed to ensure that your house would remain pristine and a comfortable place to live in for many years. Thus, small improvements and regular maintenance can give a big impact on every home.
Installing a gutter guard is one of the house improvements that you should consider, as a homeowner, to ensure that a bigger problem that equals bigger expenses would be avoided as much as possible. You should see a gutter guard as an investment rather than an expense because of the benefits that it could offer to your house.
Need Assistance On Gutter Guard Installation?
The Grace Family Roofing Company can help you! We offer a great value in roofing repairs/installations and other roofing-related services (such as leaf guard installation) to every homeowner. As we believe and apply our goal that honesty and integrity are important to make a work good. We also make sure that we also build a good working relationship with our customers to gain their trust and meet their satisfaction. Contact us today to book an appointment with us.