Rain Gutter And Eave Trough Installation, Maintenance and Repair

There are lots of quick and easy projects that can be done to keep your home looking great and maintain it's value. But often it is easy to disregard or neglect these tasks since they seem to be trivial and of negligible value. And one of these seemingly unimportant jobs is maintaining the rain gutters on your home.

Installing rain gutters on your house and keeping them clean and in good condition has a number of advantages. It seems obvious that your house is outside in the weather. While that is true, rain gutters and eave troughs really can protect your home. They do this by keeping most of the rain off your exterior house siding or masonry and by redirecting the rainwater out and away from your foundation.

Rain running off a roof without gutters onto cement driveways and walks can pit out and gouge a channel in a matter of just a couple of years. And if you don't have rain gutters the large amount of water coming off your roof and falling right next to the foundation of your house will cause settling of the ground near the foundation. This can cause the thousands of gallons of water that fall on your roof each year in addition to the water around your house to seep down next to your basement walls. If you are living in a climate where it freezes during the cold months, this is an especially bothersome problem since the expanding and contracting of the supersaturated frozen ground is among the main causes of foundation cracks and basement wall problems.

If you don't have rain gutters on your home, it is easy to install them. The vinyl rain gutters available today at local diy stores are fairly easy and quick to put up. You can get gutter contractors do your rain gutter installation and some of these offer seamless rain gutters which is a nice feature. But if you would like to do it yourself this is a job well within the reach of anyone with a little DIY skill and can be completed over a weekend.

Then its simply a case of maintaining the gutters by cleaning them twice a year, spring and fall, and you will add years to the life of your house. Whenever you clean the gutters, remove all the debris you find inside. Examine the openings where the downspout attaches to make sure that it's not plugged and that the water can run freely.

Repair any damaged or loose gutters and make sure that you have the proper slope for drainage. A drop of approximately one inch per each 20 feet of run works well. Repair any leaks or holes that you come across with gutter sealant. You can get gutter and flashing sealant in tubes that fit your caulking gun. This is a fast and simple way to fix small problems and keep everything in good repair.

For those who have lots of leaves in your yard that create frequent plugging problems for you, it's possible to prevent them from entering the gutters by using gutter screen to keep most of them out. There are also several new products that use a porous foam filler or brush type material that you simply place in your eave troughs that fill the space and keep leaves and trash out, but permit the water to move through.

By taking a few hours every year to inspect and clean up your rain gutters you'll eliminate many years of wear from your home's siding and masonry along with helping to keep the basement dry. It is a quick and simple do it yourself project which has a big payback for the little time it will take you to do it.

When you are doing home remodeling and repair jobs, using portable and roll off storage and containers is economical and becoming more and more popular. For additional information regarding portable storage containers, roll off containers or roll off dumpsters, don't hesitate to visit our website.