Rain gutters and their associated downspouts are the silent heroes of your home. They work quietly and efficiently to save your home from the ravages of all of that evil water that falls from the sky, and you never give them a word of thanks or even a solitary thought — until they break. Even then, they’re not valiant heroes in need of a medic and a shot of whiskey; they’re a royal pain in the butt for needing repair and consideration. How fair is that?

Let’s take a look at what you need to know in order to give your gutters the affection they deserve.

What They’re Made Of

Rain gutters are classically divided by the material that composes their structure. The most common choices are aluminum, steel, copper, vinyl, and wood. Vinyl, while cheap, is prone to short lifespans, and isn’t recommended by anyone. Wood, once the only kind of gutter, is just starting to become popular again, as it can last even longer than metal gutters — but only with proper maintenance. Steel is great for areas of low humidity. Aluminum is the second choice to steel for high-humidity areas. And copper, while often shunned for its high price, lasts longer than either of the other metals and looks beautiful besides.

How They’re Shaped

There are two major styles of gutter shape — half-rounds, and the “K” style, which is essentially rectangular. They also come in various widths/diameters, from 4 to 7 inches, with 5 being usually the norm for most typical areas, and 7 only really coming into play if you live under heavy tree cover and can regularly expect to have live squirrels using your downspouts as waterslides. Speaking of downspouts, they’re generally an inch or two smaller in diameter/width than your gutters.

How They’re Hooked Up

Duct tape, while it may resemble the Force in many respects, actually isn’t that great of a way to attach gutters to your home. Spike-and-ferrule systems, which essentially nail your gutter to your house, are cheap but they come out easily. Depending on your roof, you will generally want to go with a hidden-hanger, hanger-and-strap, or crossbar hanger system.

If you intend to keep good care of your home, you have to start by getting your gutters checked and possibly get a good gutter cleaning company to come out and give them a professional once-over.

Hey, Los Angeles, let’s talk…see, you really need to take a good look at your rain gutters, LA. Just because you’re famous for being all sunny and happy and Katie Perry doesn’t mean you don’t need to perform basic household maintenance, and that includes getting your gutters done on a regular basis. If you don’t, you can have leakage, and we all know what that’s like. Well, maybe you don’t, but you’ll find out if you don’t take good care of your drainage systems.

You might think that your gutters are all good, but how long has it been since you’ve actually looked? You know how sometimes you can tell that Oprah’s stopped looking at herself in the mirror again? Don’t let your house be Oprah on her down cycle.

There’s a lot of things that can cause gutter problems, and some of them you might not think of. The normal stuff — leaves and crap in your gutters, downspouts that don’t spout properly, and simple gutter damage — that’s…well, normal. But your gutters can also suffer when the fault line decides to dance the jig, or when a windstorm rattles your house up a bit, or when your lawnmower kicks a pebble and shoots a tiny little hole in them. That’s why you have to get up and look close to see how things are going up there.

See, if your gutters aren’t working, LA, then you’ve got some more issues on the way. You know the whole deal with preventative medicine, like how if you get your Gardasil now, you won’t get cancer of the naughties later in life? That’s what gutter repair is like. If you don’t keep your gutters gutting, then you’ll get water wetting, and wetness of the house is serious business. You can get home blemishes, reduced insulative values, and in the extreme, you can get basement flooding, wall moisture (which can lead to mold!), and even a weakening in your foundation. That’s dangerous AND easily avoidable.

Here’s a few quick signs that it’s time to replace your rain gutters, Los Angeles:

• You can see water stains or mold anywhere on the inside or outside of your house.
• Puddles touch the side of your house during or after a rainstorm.
• Your gutters are getting floppy or your gutter nails are coming out.
• Your downspouts aren’t spouting so much as trickling, even in heavy rain.

Watch for those signs, get up close and personal with your gutters, and take care of them — because, whether you know it or not, LA, your gutters are taking care of you.

Gutter cleaning is one of the nastiest, most uncomfortable, and simply grossest jobs that most people will engage in across their lifetimes, maybe second to changing diapers….maybe. But the San Fernando Valley’s professional gutter cleaning services are so expensive that people don’t ever seem quite willing to spring for them. As a result, the gutters in Los Angeles suffer quite a bit. Of course, damaged or clogged gutters can be almost as bad as no gutters at all, so someone has to clean them. Here’s one of the best ways that we know to get the job done yourself, and efficiently.

You’ll need a metal coat hanger, some safety goggles, some heavy-duty rubber gloves, a large S-shaped hook, a trowel, a bucket, a long garden hose with a spray nozzle, and a ladder.

First, set up the ladder next to a downspout, and carry everything (only one end of the hose; the other should remain attached to a tap) up the ladder. Alternately, have someone on the ground who can hand you the stuff you need when you need it. Obviously, you’re going to wear the gloves and the goggles; put everything else in the bucket for ease of carrying. Use the S-hook to hang the bucket from the ladder or the gutter for convenience.

Use the coat hanger, bent into whatever shape is best, to clean the accumulated debris on the opening into the downspout. Then, use the hose to spray away any loosened gunk, and keep spraying until the downspout flows clear all the way down to the bottom. If the spout appears clogged, spray directly down it with the strongest spray your hose can produce; this will generally suffice to open the downspout up.

Move to the next section of gutter, and repeat. If a particularly tenacious bit of debris refuses to give way to the hanger, take the trowel to it. Carefully apply this process to each section of gutter and each downspout, making certain that each of them is muck-free and flowing clear water easily down each downspout.

It’s not easy, and it’s not fun, but it is a necessary part of maintaining any home, whether you live in London or LA. Keep your gutters clean, and they’ll keep your home safe from water damage, plain and simple.

It’s time to face facts: your homes need rain gutters, Los Angeles. If you have any intention of properly maintaining your house, having well cared for rain gutters is simply a necessity. The headaches that properly functioning gutters can prevent — and the problems that can occur if they are gunked up, leaking, or simply not present — are myriad and severe.

Gutters take the rain water running off of your roof and they channel it away from your home, preventing water from damaging your roof, soffits, exterior paint, windowsills, and shutters. More importantly, Los Angeles, they keep water from getting inside your walls, settling around your foundation, or getting into your basement.

Without gutters, water can collect around your foundation, which can cause it to crack (or, for some types of foundation, slide or roll). Regardless, the stability and structure of your home are immediately compromised. Water around your foundation can also seep under your floors, which can cause rugs to start molding from the bottom up, wooden floors to warp, and can cause electrical damage. Such water can also wick up the wooden structure of your house, and get inside the walls, where it can inspire the growth of unhealthy black mold, even in the relatively dry heat of the Valley.

All of this can be prevented simply by installing and properly maintaining rain gutters, LA. There are lots of options on the market, ranging from the traditional aluminum and plastic to beautiful copper gutters and galvanized steel as well. All of them work about as well, so pick the material that best compliments your home’s aesthetics.

Once installed, you must keep your gutters clean. Gutter guards can go a long way toward making this job easy, but even with them, you should still check your downspouts at least once a year and make sure that everything is flowing properly. By performing this basic maintenance, you can get decades of excellent service out of your rain gutters.

Rain gutters are the best way to prevent several painful damaging effects of loose water on, in, and around your home. You can’t blame it on the rain this time — get your home properly protected.

San Fernando Valley rain gutters are no different than any other — without proper maintenance, they can cause more trouble than they save. In general, rain gutters are quite durable, and can last two or three decades without needing to be replaced, but that doesn’t mean you can’t double check them on a regular basis. Any one component that gets damaged can cause a cascade of harm that will require replacement much sooner than normal.

Similarly, any gutter that’s gotten clogged, cracked, warped, punctured, or disconnected from its neighbors or from its downspout can lead to extensive damage to the whole gutter assembly if it’s not attended to promptly.

The purpose of a gutter assembly is to take rainwater safely away from the roof — and more importantly the foundation — of a building. Without gutters, the risks of mold growth, water damage, and erosion around the foundation increase dramatically. Damaged rain gutters will allow water to pool on your lawn, in your garden, and eventually, around the bottom of your house. That’s the most important reason why San Fernando Valley rain gutters need regular replacement.

Before you decide to install new gutters, of course, it’s valuable to clean out the old ones. The chances are that they’re damaged enough to require replacement, but maybe you’ll be able to keep some of it and save yourself a bit of expense. Of course, if you’re concerned with the aesthetics of your house, you may want to replace your whole gutter setup at once in order to maintain the same image across the entire roofline.

In general, you’ll want a professional to help you. You can DIY it with a ladder, a hacksaw, and a circular saw, but it’s only worth the effort if you’re really hardcore about the handyman thing. You can usually find someone to help by asking around at the local Home Depot or by looking up gutter installations on Google. The best part about paying for professional help is that you often get a guarantee with it.

One of the most important features of any home — the rain gutters — are also one of the features that is the most often overlooked, downplayed, or simply ignored. Gutters are so extremely crucial to the maintenance of a home, however, that it should be a crime to not give them the attention they deserve.

A gutter, in unnecessar-ese, is an exterior home drainage assistance device. In other words, it sits on the outside of your home, assisting the forces of gravity, momentum, inertia, and fluid dynamics in the process of getting water off of your roof safely. Without gutters, water runoff can damage almost every part of the outside of your home, but that’s just the beginning.

Water that runs down the outside of your home doesn’t just stop and disappear into an aquifer when it hits the ground. In fact, it gathers around the basement walls and/or foundation of your home, where it can seep inside or erode the foundation itself. If there’s one thing that’s harder to deal with than a flooded basement, it’s a shifting foundation. Nothing quite matches the feeling of walking through a house that’s tilted, even just a tiny bit, due to rain damage.

Fortunately, we have gutters. Gutters and downspouts are inexpensive, relatively easy to install, and, when done properly, can add beauty to your home. Gutters come in several basic materials — vinyl, steel, copper, and aluminum are the most common — and each material has its own pros and cons. Research a little to find out which would be best for you and your home.

One thing to remember when installing rain gutters is that they should be placed so that the roof overhangs the gutter by about half. The downspouts should be positioned so that the water runs far enough away from the house so that they don’t create puddles that reach the side of the house; that keeps the water away from the basement and/or foundation.

Once they’re installed and working properly, maintained your gutters by cleaning them (or hiring a gutter cleaning service) twice each year — once at the end of summer and once at the beginning of winter.