Why A Home Should Have Gutters

No law mandates placement of rain gutters on homes. So why should a home have gutters?

A close look at the gutters’ primary purpose

Those structures have been designed to direct the rainwater that slides down the rooftop. The gutter system includes downspouts. Those work to direct runoff that could harm the landscape. While the gutter system stays attached to the home, it can guide runoff to a drain or to a safe area. Any downspout in that same system can receive an extension, so that water flows out of it at the most suitable location.

The other functions of a gutter system

It reduces chances for erosion in the ground that touches the home’s foundation. In addition, it prevents pooling in spots around the foundation. It lowers the risk for basement flooding. It cannot eliminate any chance for flooding. Some homes have been built over an underground spring. Some exist at the bottom of a steep slope.

It cuts down on the amount of damage that can get created on the home’s foundation. If allowed to persist, erosion and pooling could diminish the amount of ground around the foundation, and expose that low-lying structure to the elements.

How a family in a home might enjoy other benefits from the home’s gutters?

If designed properly, a gutter system can be used to collect rainwater; thus, making that collected water available for gardening. In the absence of gutters, runoff from the roof could look like waterfalls. If it had the power of a falls, it could create trenches around the gutter-lacking house. Castles were surrounded by moats, but a house is not supposed to be surrounded by trenches.

By the same token, a seeming “falls” could make it hard to get into the front door of the affected residence. What hostess would want to have her guests negotiate the wall of water created by a type of “falls”?

Earlier, reference was made to one way that a gutter system could benefit gardeners. That reference failed to indicate what could happen to a garden, if a house did not have a gutter attached to the end of the roof. In that case, a deluge from the rooftop might hit the small plants in a garden. Those tiny plants could not survive the forces in such a deluge. In other words, each of them would receive too much water.

Alternately, runoff could create a channel. That channel could send a stream of rainwater over an area within a garden. That stream could erode the soil, in the same way that it could erode the earth touching the foundational structure. The plants would not be able to survive in the garden’s eroded soil. Roofing Company in San Jose could channel the water to the flower beds and ensure there is no loss of resources.