Gutter and Down Spout Function

Gut­ters and down­spouts pro­vide a very impor­tant func­tion on your house that is often over­looked. The main func­tion of a gut­ter sys­tem on the house or other build­ing is to col­lect the large amount of water that is run­ning off of the roof and chan­nel it away from the build­ing so as not to cause dam­age or oth­er­wise be an inconvenience.

When prop­erly installed and main­tained, gut­ters help keep the foun­da­tion of the house or build­ing that they are installed on from becom­ing over­sat­u­rated with water.

They elim­i­nate the trough cut into the ground around the build­ing and help to elim­i­nate the splash of mud and water back onto the building.

They can help to keep large pud­dles or flows of water from form­ing and cross­ing walk­ways or dri­ve­ways. And they also keep us from get­ting a shower from the water com­ing off of the roof while try­ing to walk in the front door of our house while it’s raining.

If you have flower beds sur­round­ing your house the large amounts of water falling off of the roof will destroy them by pound­ing plants into the ground and/ or wash­ing away mulch soil.

Of these poten­tial prob­lems that come from not hav­ing gut­ters installed and main­tained, the foun­da­tion get­ting soaked is the biggest con­cern. If the foun­da­tion begins to get water dam­aged it can be extremely costly to repair. It can cre­ate insta­bil­ity in the foun­da­tion, water dam­age in the base­ment and mold growth that is haz­ardous to your health.

Not hav­ing gut­ters can also cause dam­age to the eaves of your roof and pos­si­bly the sid­ing, insu­la­tion and inte­rior of the house. The gut­ters catch the water com­ing off of the roof and chan­nel it away to the down spouts and then to drains or run offs. If the gut­ters are not in place or they get clogged the water may run down the fas­cia or in some cases, run behind the fas­cia and get on top of the sof­fit. If this hap­pens the water may be able to travel on top of the sof­fit back to the house wall and run down the first place that it can get to. This could mean run­ning down the out­side of the wall, inside the wall or onto the ceil­ing of the house.

Water and mud splash­ing back onto the house near the ground can dam­age the sid­ing, espe­cially wood sid­ing. It is also very unsightly to have the bot­tom of your house cov­ered in dirt.

Water dam­age is one of the biggest prob­lems for any house as most of the mate­ri­als that a house is con­structed of do not react well to water. Wood fram­ing, insu­la­tion, dry­wall, plas­ter, wood trim, wood sheet­ing and even some of the steel hard­ware hold­ing the house together all need to remain dry in order to main­tain their struc­tural integrity.

So keep­ing your roof in good con­di­tion is cer­tainly a must in order to elim­i­nate water dam­age but you must also keep the gut­ters, down­spouts, and sid­ing in good con­di­tion so that you keep the water out of your house.

For more infor­ma­tion on inspect­ing and main­tain­ing you gut­ters please see my other post:

Gut­ter and Down Spout Maintenance