Going to the dentist. An IRS audit. Buying life insurance. For many of homeowners, cleaning gutters certainly falls within this group of misery. We all know cleaning our gutters is necessary, but few of us really know why those gutters must be clean.
The gutters on your home serve a very distinct purpose. They are designed to remove water in a particularly orderly way. That may sound obvious, but it is a bit more complicated than you think.
You have to remember that water is incredibly powerful. Don’t believe me? Two words – Grand Canyon. It was carved out by water. If it did that to solid rock, what chance does your home have? To give it a fighting one, gutters are used to accomplish a couple of things.
The first goal, of course, is to get the water off the roof. With this in mind, roofs are usually angled in a slight manner to encourage water to collect in one area and move down to gutter spouts. Not all water will do this, however, which is why the top of gutters are open. This allows excess water to sheet off the roof into the gutter instead of down to the ground.
The second goal of gutters is to place the water in a desired spot where it will not do damage. What would happen if you didn’t have gutters? Water would sheet off of all sides of the roof like so many waterfalls. This water would create burrows wherever it landed on the ground unless the area was paved. So much for your plants and landscaping! Of equally importance, the water would run back up against the wall and over load whatever system was being used to wick water from the wall. In short, a number of problems are created.
Instead of having all this happen, gutters are designed to defeat these problems in two ways. First, the gutter will have a downspout section that will take the water to ground level, robbing it of the powerful waterfall effect that can dig out the ground. Second, the gutters will move water horizontally to areas where it can be taken to the ground and dispersed without causing problems. These areas often include the driveway and drains.
Now that you know why gutters are important and how they work, you can probably deduce the reason they need to be cleaned. If they get stopped up with gunk, the water will back flow. When this occurs, the problems the gutters are designed to stop will rear their ugly heads again and you are back to square one.
Aazdak Alisimo is with So Cal Roofing - a licensed, bonded and insured
roofing contractor providing commercial and residential roofing services in Southern California.
