Gutters are a very important part of keeping water away from your home. Without gutters, water runoff would end up damaging your roofing system, foundation, and even the interior of your home. During the winter, your gutters are susceptible to freezing and in turn, not doing their job. Here, our gutter experts explain how to prevent that from happening:

Sloping

Sloping allows water to flow through your gutters smoothly and allows your gutters to carry it away from your home.

1. Make sure your gutters are sloped properly, place your ladder against your home.
2. Climb up to your gutter where it’s furthest away from your downspout.
3. Next, using your measuring tape, measure from the bottom of your fascia to the top of your gutter and mark down the measurement.
4. Move your ladder down a few feet and repeat step 3.
5. Continue to move down your gutters until you reach the downspout. Your measurements should slowly increase from the beginning of your gutter to the downspout.
6. If your measurements increase, you have a sloped gutter system. If they don’t, you’ll want to readjust the system to increase water flow.

Debris

Debris can cause gutter clogs and in return, inhibit the flow of water away from your roof and your home.

1. Place your ladder against your home.
2. Next, climb up to your gutter system and look inside.
3. If you find debris such as twigs, sticks, leaves, nests, or any other material that may cause clogs, make sure you fully remove it.
4. After you do, to make sure your gutters are flowing smoothly, run your garden hose into the gutters and see if the water pools anywhere.

Insulation

Proper roofing insulation can keep your roof cold during the winter and therefore, prevent too much snow from melting and overflowing your gutters.

1. To make sure your home has the right amount of insulation, contact our insulation experts and let us take a look. If we believe you need more, we’ll let you know and install it quickly.

Snow Removal

Too much snow can clog your gutters and cause them to freeze.

1. To prevent your roof from having too much snow, invest in a roof rake.
2. When a heavy snow occurs, keep excess water from flowing into your gutters and possibly freezing by using your roof rake to scrape some of the snow off of your roof.