When preparing your home for winter, you’d better watch out for your gutters to prevent debris, snow, and ice buildup that are coming to town. Start with routine cleaning, inspections, and repairs. Then, consider preventative solutions like heated gutters and gutter guards.
Proactive gutter maintenance helps protect your gutters during winter, so you can avoid costly repairs. Let’s look at some ways you can winterize your gutters and prevent headaches caused by water damage in the cold winter weather.
Clean Your Gutters
Gutter cleaning should be at the top of your winter maintenance task list. Leaves and debris can cause gutter clogs, which can lead to bigger problems for your gutters and home. It’s recommended that you clean your gutters after most of the leaves from nearby trees have fallen.
Dennis Fraser, a professional gutter cleaner who owns Fraser Gutter Cleaning, suggests that the best time to clean your gutters is in autumn: “Clear out leaves, twigs, and debris in the fall. Clogged gutters are more likely to trap water, which freezes and adds weight.”
When cleaning your gutters, concentrate on removing debris from the corners where leaves tend to accumulate. This helps prevent clogs that lead to water overflow and ice dams in winter.
Read More: How to Clean Gutters in Winter
Conduct a Thorough Gutter Inspection
When winter is around the corner, it’s time for routine gutter checks. Inspect joints, look for missing fasteners, and check for cracks or other signs of damage on your gutters.
Fraser recommends scheduling a professional gutter inspection before winter: “A winter checkup helps catch damage early, before it leads to costly repairs. Small cracks or loose fasteners become bigger issues in freezing conditions.”
Repair Your Gutters If Needed
If you found leaks, cracks, loose fasteners, or other damage during your inspection, repair your gutters as soon as possible. Working gutters help prevent rainwater, snow, hail, and ice from damaging your home during winter.
Fraser shares that repairing your gutters’ brackets and sealing their joints should be prioritized in your gutter winterization checklist: “Reinforce brackets and seal joints before temperatures drop.”
Realign Your Gutters
Realignment should be done for sagging, loose, and inadequately pitched gutters. Ensure your gutters are slightly sloped to ensure that any water will flow directly into your downspouts. If you are unable to have your gutters repitched before winter, you can still do so when spring comes.
Check Your Home’s Exterior
Thoroughly inspect your home’s foundation, fascia, and siding for any signs of structural damage, staining, or rotting. Repair any damage found as quickly as possible to prevent further degradation. For more extensive damage, contact a qualified roofing contractor.
Check Your Insulation
Check the insulation on your roof. This will prevent snow and ice from continually melting and putting pressure on your gutters.
In addition to ensuring that your insulation maintains proper heating in your home, Fraser explains that it can also prevent ice dams: “Proper airflow reduces heat loss that melts roof snow and causes ice dams.”
Trim Nearby Trees
To minimize debris that may fall into your gutters, trim any tree branches hanging directly over your home. Pruning will also reduce the risk of any branches being weighed down by snow falling on your roof or gutter system.
Fraser explains why trimming nearby trees is important: “Overhanging branches drop debris and can snap under snow or ice, damaging gutters.”
Install Downspout Extensions
Adding downspout extensions will push snow and ice farther away from your home. To prevent water from seeping into critical areas, such as your home’s foundation or basement, your downspouts should extend 4 to 6 feet away from your home’s foundation.
Fraser adds that splash blocks can also protect your home from water and ice damage during winter: “Extenders or splash blocks can prevent pooling and icing near the base.”
Protect Your Gutters with Gutter Guards
Gutter guards protect your gutters by blocking leaves, twigs, and large debris that cause clogs. Some types of gutter guards, such as micro-mesh gutter guards, help prevent ice and snow buildup in winter.
There is a common misconception that gutter guards cause icicles, when in fact, poor insulation and ventilation in your attic are the usual causes of this. If ice dams recur despite having gutter guards, consider installing heated gutters.
Read more: How to Install Gutter Guards in 6 Easy Steps
Install Heated Gutters
If your gutters are more prone to ice dams due to frequent snowfall, consider installing heat cables or heated gutter guards. These heating devices melt ice and snow buildup in your gutters, which are the common culprits of ice dams.
Fraser suggests installing heat cables in parts of your roof that are prone to ice buildup: “In problem areas such as valleys that face north, heated cables can prevent excessive ice buildup.”
Another way to prevent the formation of ice dams is to sprinkle table salt (sodium chloride) in your gutters. Avoid rock salt, as it can damage your gutters.
| Meet the Expert: Dennis Fraser and his wife own and operate Fraser Gutter Cleaning. They provide professional gutter cleaning services to homeowners in Denver, Colorado, and the surrounding areas, with a focus on helping elderly and disabled clients. |
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Main Image: Worker standing on ladder inspecting house gutter. Image Credit: Brian / Adobe Stock
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