How Rain Gutters in Los Angeles Can Save Your Home

Maybe it’s the reputation of California as a haven of vanilla sky sunshine and bikini tops, but for some reason, it seems like there are a lot of Los Angelinos who don’t realize just how important the rain gutters in Los Angeles homes really are. Even if it doesn’t rain all that much, going without gutters is risky business. Clogged, nasty gutters can’t do their jobs properly and are almost as bad as not having gutters at all. So what do gutters do that’s so important?

Protect Your Home from Water

When water falls out of the sky, it doesn’t just evaporate, at least not right away. First, it has to go somewhere. Rain gutters direct that water away from the vulnerable parts of your house. Ask a roofing contractor whether your roof is one of those ‘vulnerable parts’; if he’s at all good at his job, he’ll tell you that if you have decent gutters, it’s generally not — but if you don’t, it certainly can be. Without gutters, you get ‘wraparound water’ that sneaks back up underneath your shingles, tiles, or what have you, and can permanently damage the structure of your roof.

Of course, lacking gutters, you also have water falling right next to your home, which means flooding in basements or shifting in foundations. If you’re experiencing basement flooding, it’s almost certain that you’ve got a gutter problem, and if you have a few good men come out and take a look, they’ll probably be able to find it for you. At that point, it’s a simple matter of getting the malfunctioning part of the gutters replaced. Gutters are far and away the most cost-effective way to avoid spending thousands of dollars recovering from basement floods or a shifting foundation.

Those shifting foundations aren’t anything to mess around with, either. When the dry season takes a break and the days of thunder come, those humble gutters keep several hundred gallons of water from pouring down the side of your house, often in a constant stream in the same place. It erodes the earth around your foundation like a virtual rain man digging away below your house. Without them, the firm seating you thought your house could rely upon could suddenly give way — even only slightly — and your home will end up tilted, or even cracked. And you’ve never really seen the color of money until you’ve had to pay to have an entire house put back together.

Gutters Have All The Right Moves

Without gutters, the water that plummets off of our home can deal a lot of collateral damage, but that’s no reason to be losin’ it. If you intend to avoid the scenarios just mentioned, you don’t need to do a lot. Just get a proper gutter cleaning, and have any broken gutters around your house properly repaired, and you can let the winds bring whatever tropic thunder they may without fear.