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Rain Gutter Cleaning
Keep your Rain Gutters
Flowing with these Simple Rain Gutter Cleaning Tips
By Mark
J. Donovan
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Rain gutter cleaning should be on
your semi-annual home maintenance list. Rain gutters protect you and your home
from water damage. Rain water running off your home’s roof can cause erosion
around your home’s foundation, wet basements, and sill and home siding rot if
left unchecked. Rain gutters also protect you from getting drenched when you
walk out your front door on a rainy day.
Not cleaning rain gutters
periodically can also lead to damage around the home’ s fascia boards and
possibly lead to the rain gutters themselves ripping off of the home.
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Sopping
wet leaves and other debris that build up in rain gutters cause water to back up
in the gutters. Besides rain water overflowing the gutter sidewalls, the excess
weight can literally cause the rain gutters to pull away from the fascia boards.
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Cleaning Rain
Gutters
You should inspect and clean your
rain gutters at least twice a year, once in the late fall time and once in early
spring. By cleaning rain gutters in late fall you can be sure to remove any
leaves, branches and other debris that may have accumulated during the summer
and fall seasons. This way you can ensure your rain gutters will work properly during
the winter season, or at least not get so jammed up with ice due to freezing
rain water backups.
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Clean rain gutters
in the spring time as well to inspect them for any winter ice damage and for
removing any debris that may have accumulated in them during the winter months.
Cleaning rain
gutters typically requires a ladder, a garden hose with a spray nozzle, and a
pair of rubber work gloves. Make sure the ladder is properly positioned on the
ground and is fully stabilized. Also do not climb too high up the ladder. A step
ladder works best for cleaning gutters, however make sure it is tall enough for
the job so that you can safely use it without having to stand on the top two
steps. If you need to use an extension ladder, then place blocking material,
e.g. a section of 2x4, inside the gutter to prevent the rain gutter from bending
when you lean the extension ladder up against it.
To clean rain gutters, simply remove
the leaves and debris from the rain gutters and hose them down with your garden
hose and spray nozzle.
When cleaning rain gutters also make sure to clean out the gutter downspouts.
Make sure that there are no clogs in them by spraying your garden hose down the
downspouts. Don’t be surprised to see a wad of debris flow out the end of the
downspout when doing this.
Gutter Shields and
Gutter Guards
Though your rain gutters may be
outfitted with gutter shields or gutter guards don’t think you are exempt from
having to perform periodic rain gutter cleanings. Though these systems help in
preventing gutter clogs they are not perfect. Small debris inevitably finds its
way underneath them and into your gutters. So even if you have these types of
gutter shield systems over your gutters don’t be surprised if you will need to
still clean your rain gutters.
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