As long as people insist on not installing gutter-guard systems on their homes, the gutters will insist on regular maintenance—and even then will still require some maintenance.
So what does “regular maintenance” look like? Certainly not like the following picture.
The amount of maintenance necessary will depend on lots of factors. The types of vegetation present that will fill the gutters, how long it takes for this to happen and seasonal loading for some kinds of vegetation around the home—and of course kids and dogs.
Kids and Dogs?
It is amazing the kinds of stuff I find on roofs and in gutters related to either being tossed by kids or from things being tossed for dogs to chase. Hopefully nobody really expected the dog to get up on the roof. I was actually surprised in the picture above that the ball apparently did not float out of the way.
While some dams might be constructed of bricks they should not be used to dam up gutters.
In some cases cleaning might be required every month—for some homes once a year might be enough. I know that if I had to clean mine every month I would be thinking really hard about installing a gutter guard system.
As you can see in the following pictures it does not take very much debris to completely dam up a gutter.
Overflowing gutters defeats the purpose of the gutters—which is to collect it, send it down the downspouts where it can be directed away from the foundation (either above ground or below ground).
By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle
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