Gutter problems don’t show up until damage has already started to happen to your home. Homeowners in Etobicoke call us when they see water pooling near their foundation or stains on their exterior walls. They find out their gutters have been broken for weeks or even months. The problem with gutters is they’re up high and not many people look at them very often. If you see water where it shouldn’t be, your gutters have probably not been doing their job for a long time.
During storms and spring thaws, your gutters have to handle a lot of water. We’re talking hundreds or thousands of gallons that need to flow smoothly through the system and away from your home’s foundation. If your gutters crack, come loose from their hangers, or get clogged with leaves and debris, the water has to find another way out. Sadly, it usually ends up running down your walls, into your foundation, or backing up under your roof shingles. Repairing water damage inside your home or fixing foundation problems costs a lot more than regular gutter maintenance and quick repairs.
We at Professional Roofers Toronto have seen every kind of gutter problem that homeowners have. One of the most common problems we see on service calls is sagging sections. When the hangers that hold your gutters to your fascia board get loose, rusty or were put too far apart in the first place, the gutters sag. When the roof starts to sag, water can’t flow properly to the downspouts where it should. It doesn’t go away; instead, it collects in the low spots which makes the sagging worse over time and eventually causes overflow during heavy rain. We’ve seen gutters that are sagging so badly they pull all the way off houses, taking pieces of damaged fascia board with them. This makes repairs that cost a lot more than fixing the problem early would have.Another common repair we see is seams that have come apart. Most gutter systems have joints where different parts come together. Over time, these seams can come apart. The metal expands and contracts because it’s always heating and cooling which puts stress on the connections between sections. In the winter, ice can build up and completely break those seams. We don’t just seal separated seams back together with store-bought caulk when we fix them. We look into why the separation happened and make sure our fix gets to the bottom of the problem so it doesn’t happen again next season.
Rust and corrosion can be more or less of a problem depending on how bad the damage is. Before small rust spots eat all the way through the metal and make holes, they can usually be cleaned, treated and sealed. But once rust gets all the way through, patching is hard and might only work for a short time before failing again. We tell homeowners the truth about whether it makes more sense to fix something or buy a new one that will last longer. Sometimes spending a lot of money on repairs for an old gutter system just puts off the need to replace it by a year or two.
Since your gutters and roof are connected, we always check both during our service visits. When gutters overflow, they can send water back under your shingles which can cause the roof decking to rot and leaks to form inside your home. We’ve gotten calls from homeowners who thought they needed Roof Repair but fixing their gutters fixed the leak completely without any work on the roof. On the other hand, problems with the roof can also hurt the gutters. When the drip edge is missing or broken, water can run down behind the gutters instead of into them. This causes the fascia to rot and the gutter mounting to come loose over time.Professional Roofers Toronto uses top quality materials and methods to fix roofs that can withstand the weather in Etobicoke. We know repairs need to last through freezing and thawing, heavy rain, strong winds and the weight of snow and ice that builds up in the winter. Cheap fixes may seem fine at first but they often break down when you need them most like during bad weather. Regular Roof Maintenance is the way to keep your home safe and that includes checking your gutters for problems that may be developing. We recommend checking your gutters at least twice a year, usually in the spring and fall. These checks find small problems before they become big and costly. We give honest estimates, do good work and make repairs that really fix problems instead of just covering them up for a short time when you need gutter repair.
