The Endless Gutter Clutter

It's no fun, and one of those endlessly repeating things a homeowner has to put up with. But it’s so important that I will preach it here again: Clean out your gutters!

If the gutters on your house look like the one on my garage here in the picture, you should actually clean them out NOW! At least in our area, the trees are pretty much done shedding--even the annual leaf collection and cutter trucks have finally passed through most of our streets.

If there was only one thing I have learned from the many home inspections I have attended, it would be the fact that packed, broken, loose or blocked gutters and down spouts are a major reason for water collecting around house foundations and, as a result, wet basements. They’re also often responsible for water intrusion around windows; they cause wet and moldy walls and rotten woodwork.

If you are a home owner, chances are that you know all this, but you might still forget about it. Don’t! Go outside right now and think about what your gutters are going to do (or not) in the next heavy rain. As I said, keeping them free is no fun, and it can even be expensive if you live in a larger house, but it's really that important!