Tips and Techniques for Repairing Your Gutters

Maintaining your home is usually quite simple. Paint a few rooms around your house, replace an old toilet, replace a used up light bulb and the simple tasks are out of the way. There are typically several other simple tasks that are often overlooked and can lead to the potential for a significant amount of damage to your home later down the road. One task that comes to mind is repairing your rain gutters.

Why do you need to repair your rain gutters? The answer is actually quite simple. Water is routinely considered one of the worst enemies of any home. Water can cause damage to many parts of your home and the source of water infiltration is usually the result of damaged or neglected rain gutters. Rain gutters serve the purpose of collecting rain water and effectively channeling it away from your home.

Fall is a perfect time to check your rain gutters to determine if repair is needed. Fall leaves can clog gutters as well as damage them. Furthermore, winter is right around the corner and the winter snow, ice, and freeze thaw cycles can be a significant source of potentially damaging water.

First, get your ladder. A ladder is essential for gutter work.

Next, inspect your gutters for any visual signs of damage. You are looking for sagging gutters, noticeable holes in the gutters, loose connection, broken downspouts, and any other visual clues that point to possible damage.

Now let's remove any blockage from the gutters such as built up leaves, bird's nests, etc.

Assessing the damage and repairing it is a simple process. For sagging gutters, the typical fix requires little more than driving the the hanging nails back into place or replacing a damaged or mixing hanging bracket. Older gutters typically were affixed with long nails, while newer gutters use a hanging bracket. If the gutter is sagging, inspect for missing brackets or loose nails.

Leaks are also easily repaired. If the leak is coming from a hole in the gutter, you will need to patch the area. To patch the area, cut a piece of metal that is the same type of metal as your gutters. This is typically aluminum. Cut the piece larger than the hole. Sand the area around the hole in the gutter to assure a good bond. Mix some two part exterior epoxy and spread it over the hole, apply the patch, and allow to dry.

If a leak is coming from the seam of a gutter, the fix is similar to above. To fix a seam leak, omit the metal patch and instead just mix some two part exterior epoxy, spread it into and over the seam and allow to dry.

Finally, finish the job by cleaning out all of the downspouts and directing them far away from your home.

These simple steps will keep your home free of water year round.