Fall is in the air! Pumpkin spice lattes, children excited for Halloween, brisk breezes, and the changing of the leaves are all indicators that the summer season has said goodbye and Mother Nature is preparing us for winter. For many homeowners, fall, while beautiful, is when copious amounts of leaves fall from the trees onto our roofs. As soon as a rainy day arrives, all those leaves will be washed into our gutter systems, which can cause clogs and other problems that can ruin a perfectly good day. To keep your fall cheery and festive, we recommend following these three steps to protect your gutters from fall leaf damage.
3 Tips to Protect Your Gutters from Fall Leaves
#1: Clean Your Gutters While You Still Can
As summer comes to a close, it is the perfect time to clean your gutter system. Even if you took the time to clean your gutters during your spring cleaning bash, you would be astonished by the sheer volume of dirt, twigs, debris, nests, and even trash that may have accidentally made it into your gutters. Therefore, we recommend taking a couple of hours to clear out any debris from the gutters and give them a good rinse. Doing so gives you a little extra time and wiggle room once they start to fill with leaves.
#2: Trim Up Your Trees
Trees are essential to any home landscape, providing beauty, shade, and health benefits to our families, neighborhood, and ecosystem. Unfortunately, those same trees are the perpetrators behind why we end up with so many leaves clogging our gutters and downspouts.
Rather than cutting down a magnificent tree, we recommend using the fall season to trim branches as well as prune any part of the tree that is damaged or diseased. While many homeowners DIY tree pruning, it can be detrimental to the health of the tree to prune too far or incorrectly. If you love your tree, we recommend hiring a local arborist to perform your pruning to ensure both tree and home are safely taken care of.
#3: Install Leaf Protectors
Even when we trim back trees, errant leaves can still float into our gutters via a slight fall breeze…let alone when a big gust comes along. We recommend installing leaf protectors if you face gutter clogging due to falling leaves every year.
Leaf protectors are a grate that goes over the top of your gutters to prevent leaves, debris, and other large matter from entering and backing up your gutter system. The only thing that gets through those grates is rain and small debris, leaving leaves to land on top of the gutter and eventually fall off the side.
If you are interested in a gutter service or installing leaf protectors, give Lance Roofing a call today. Preventive action is the best bet to ensure a fall and winter free of gutter problems!