When they’re in good condition, your gutters protect and beautify your Lenexa, KS home. They divert water away from your exterior walls, siding, and foundation, keep your basement dry, and safeguard your landscaping from soil saturation, shifting, and erosion. When gutters fail, the resulting water and grading damage can affect your plumbing system, your roof, and more. Fortunately, these eight signs of gutter leaks can help homeowners take fast action.
1. Chalky Lines or Streaks Just Beneath Your Gutters
If your gutters have leaky seams, you may have well-defined, chalky lines or streaks just beneath them. When runoff, dirt, and other gutter debris seep through cracks, it saturates the ground and leaves a visible pattern of discoloration. If left unchecked, seam leaks could lead to cracked driveways, walkways, and other property damage.
2. Flaking Exterior Paint
Water from ongoing gutter leaks can saturate the building materials just behind your exterior paint. This diminishes paint adhesion and can cause problems like flaking, chipping, cracking, or peeling. Exterior paint damage has many possible causes, including aging, poor priming, and incorrect paint choice, but when paint damage is confined to areas just beneath gutters, a gutter leak is the most likely issue.
3. Bulging or Discolored Siding
Paint damage is hardly the only siding problem that leaking gutters cause. If you have bulging or discolored siding, check your gutters. Gutter leaks can lead to mold, wood rot, and warping. If you have clogged and overflowing gutters, dark tannins from leaves could create dark, rust-colored streaks on your siding. If left to fester, gutter leaks and the resulting siding problems will eventually lead to serious structural damage.
4. Basement Moisture
When gutters and downspouts can’t effectively direct runoff away from building foundations, low-lying areas eventually take in moisture. If you have damp, musty odors in your basement or crawlspaces, pooling water, or a sudden and significant increase in humidity, your gutters could be the culprit. As downstairs moisture evaporates, your living space will feel increasingly clammy or muggy. Basement leaks caused by leaky gutters create the perfect conditions for widespread problems with mildew and mold.
5. Soggy Terrain
While gutters, downspouts, and landscape drains aren’t exactly a watertight drainage system, they should still keep your yard from becoming a wet, muddy mess following heavy precipitation. If the soil around your home is perpetually wet, even when everything else has dried, check your gutters. You might have leaky gutter seams, leaking joints between your gutters and downspouts, or dirty, overflowing gutters.
Much like exterior paint damage, perpetually wet, saturated soil can have multiple causes. You might have a broken water supply pipe or a damaged sewer line. However, soil shifting and other landscaping changes resulting from leaky gutters can also contribute to these issues.
6. Sagging Gutters
Sagging gutters are an obvious indication of rooftop drainage problems. The most common causes of gutter sagging are excess weight, improper installation, and the age-related deterioration of gutter materials. Sagging gutters have an improper slope. This leads to pooling water, corrosion, and the progressive degradation of gutter seals. Although sagging gutters aren’t always leaking gutters, if you don’t have your sagging gutters replaced or repaired, they will eventually leak.
7. Ceiling Leaks
While some ceiling leaks leave pooling water on floors, not all ceiling leaks are so conspicuous. Ceiling leaks that result from leaky gutters can be hard to spot. You’ll usually notice these leaks in room corners, right at the building’s edge. You might have leaky ceilings in corner pantries or closets, or you may find no other signs apart from increased attic moisture and wet attic insulation. All of these things are an indication that you need an immediate roof inspection.
8. Leaky or Damaged Windows
Leaky gutters damage and discolor siding, diminish the lifespan of exterior paint, and cause warping and rotting in the underlying building materials. Your windows aren’t impervious to this damage. If you have warped window sills, windows that are increasingly difficult to open or close, pooling water on interior window ledges, or windows constantly covered in condensation, leaky gutters could be why.
We help Lenexa locals protect their homes with expert roofing, storm damage, and gutter services. With over 10 years of roofing experience, we value honesty, humility, and integrity. We offer comprehensive roof inspections, gutter repairs, and new gutter installation. If you have leaky gutters in Lenexa, give HT Roofing & Construction a call!
