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Repairing or replacing your roof is a major investment. So you want to make sure that the work is done right by a contractor who won’t try to take advantage of you.
Here are some suggestions from Renco – aka the Phoenix Roofing Team — on not only choosing the right roof and roofer for your home, but also how to keep your roof in tiptop shape.
You’ve heard stories of the “Chinese water torture?” It didn’t involve rain gutters, but it probably should have.
Trying to sleep, rest, or work with the annoying sound of water dripping or trickling through your gutter downspouts can be maddening, even though the volume of the noise isn’t very high. Thankfully, there are some tricks to deafening that grating sound.
Why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly in formation? Why do leaves turn from green to brown in the fall? Why do fools fall in love?
“WHY do they fall in luh-huvvv?”
It’s not practical to solve all of these mysteries here. But since this is a blog about gutter protection, it is an appropriate forum to answer a commonly-asked-yet-still-vexing question: why do gutters clog?
If you really want to clean something in or around your home, you should consider using a power washer to get the job done. While there are many different products available, power washing generally involves extremely high-pressure water being sprayed on a surface in an effort to remove stubborn dirt, stains, grease, or particulates.
Gutter covers are a smart investment for the homeowner who wants to prevent clogs and water overflow. If left unchecked, the pooling water in unprotected gutters could erode landscaping, flood basements, and even compromise a home’s foundation.
But not all gutter covers are alike. In fact, gutter covers are available in a wide range of materials, each of which has various strengths and weaknesses. Let’s break down some of the most common gutter cover materials.
Many homeowners have always lived under a roof that was made of asphalt, composite, or wood shingles. They may have never even considered putting a metal roof on their home. But in reality, thousands of homes are topped by attractive, functional, energy-efficient metal roofs these days.
There are a lot of things to like about spring: mild weather, flowers blooming, longer days, and outdoor gatherings. On the other side of the ledger, spring also brings allergy flare-ups, more rain, and gutter problems.
You can’t do much about allergens or rainfall, but you can address the gutter issues that go hand-in-hand with spring. Here are five of the most common:
In case you’ve never seen one, this is a picture of a malfunctioning gutter.
Gutters are an integral part of every home. They protect the structure by catching runoff water and channeling it to locations where it won’t seep into the earth around the base of the home. Under normal conditions, gutters can take all of the rainfall from a storm and make sure it doesn’t seep into the foundation or ruin landscaping near the home.
But what about extraordinary precipitation events? Will gutters protect a home during torrential rainstorms?
Is Your Gutter Big Enough?
It’s not really possible for every gutter to function perfectly in every possible storm. But you can figure out whether the gutters you have on your home are up to the task for diverting rainfall in your area.
All gutters are rated by their manufacturers to collect and displace a certain amount of rainfall. The rating system is measured by the maximum area of a roof that the gutter can handle, assuming that rain falls at a rate of an inch an hour. This information is usually found on the packaging for the gutters themselves, or furnished by the contractor that installs the gutters on your home.
Of course, torrential rainfall will come down at a rate much higher than an inch per hour. But by making a few calculations, you can figure out if your gutters are appropriate for your home and climate.
| If your roof pitch is between | then your roof pitch factor is | |
| 0 and 3 | 1 | |
| 3 and 5 | 1.05 | |
| 5 and 8 | 1.1 | |
| 8 and 11 | 1.2 | |
| 11 or more | 1.3 |
These figures show the largest numbers of inches per hour that will most likely happen in a 10-year period for a given part of the U.S. Find the number that corresponds to where you live and multiply it by your roof watershed area.It’s a Guide, Not Gospel
Of course, your gutters must also be installed properly and in good working order for them to perform up to their maximum ratings. And gutter guards don’t affect how much rainfall your gutters can handle, since the water runs off of the roof instead of falling into the gutters from above. Plus, there have been storms which exceed the maximum predicted rainfall intensity for a given area.
But performing these computations should give you some peace of mind by knowing that your gutters stand a very good chance of handling any rainstorm that Mother Nature might throw at you.
Image credit #2: rain-gutter-guide.com.
Replacing your gutter system can be expensive. However, since it involves climbing around on a ladder, cutting metal, and fastening countless screws and brackets, you might be inclined to hire someone to do the job for you. After all, a well-functioning gutter system is pivotal to the long-term health of your home and its foundation.
But what if the gutter installation person or company that you’ve entrusted to do the job right … well … does it wrong?
This is the “I got screwed by my gutter installer” face.
You may have heard someone complain incessantly about the problems they are having with their gutters. (Maybe that someone is the person in the mirror.) You hear tales of woe that include aesthetically-displeasing rust spots or holes, misshapen or separated gutter sections, ice dams, unwanted animal habitats, and runoff water that trickles, pours, and gushes where it isn’t supposed to. Why, it’s almost enough to make you want to rip down the gutters altogether and put them out of their misery!
Here’s a proper response to that wanton desire: you can live without gutters. And you may also be able to survive quite nicely without home insurance, obeying speed limits, or reporting income on your tax forms.
But why tempt fate?
You could shatter your mirror to test out that “seven years bad luck” theory. But why?
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