Contractor Can Repair Your Siding, But You Need to Repair the Gutter.

A Contractor Can Repair Your Siding,

But You Need to Repair the Gutter.

A benefit of working with a licensed general contractor is the experience he can bring to a needed repair. Too often, a lot of time and money is spent fixing a problem that will likely recur in a few years. This may be the first time a homeowner has seen a problem like this, but the contractor may have dealt with it dozens of times. That’s what you get with hiring the right person.

In this photo, we can see that the siding is bad. The water damage has weakened the lap siding and water is intruding into the building. The rotted siding does need to be replaced with new materials, but the real problem has to be addressed. In this case the gutter may be the culprit.

Every gutter has at least one downspout. The water from the roof flows into the gutter and flows toward the downspout and out to the ground below. It is not uncommon the have a gutter that is slightly sloped in the wrong direction. While there is a little bit of adjustment at the time of installation, the roof line is not level, there’s not much that can be done to change the slope.

A gutter that slopes away from the downspout will fill with water until the water, which is self-leveling, gets high enough to reach the downspout. This is okay; the water is still flowing where it needs to go - down the downspout.

So what’s the problem Tom?

The problem with this gutter in the photo is that when the downspout gets clogged, the water in the gutter continues to fill until it flows over the top. Now since water will always find its own level, the water will overflow at the lowest point in the gutter. The gutter in the photo sloped slightly toward the house and water pours against the building siding. Over time, the water damage began and increased over the years until it got to this point today.

Yes you do have a need for siding repair but if you do not do something about the gutter, it will happen again. If this is something that you are experiencing, maybe a qualified general contractor can help you with this. It doesn’t hurt to ask.