The GutterBrush Blog

This is the time of year when a cold snap can come in anytime and catch you by surprise if your home is not yet prepped for winter.  Here are nine things to check in preparing your home for the coming winter season.

1. Heating System: Your home’s heating system is the front line of defense in keeping your home warm. You need to make sure the furnace or boiler is working before you need it.
2. Air Conditioner: Your window air conditioner or central air conditioner condensing unit needs a little prepping too in order to make it through the winter. You need to prepare the condensing unit for storage including cleaning our leaves and covering the condenser.
3. Chimney and Fireplace: A wood burning fireplace and chimney can be a major source of cold air leaks and other issues in winter. Make sure to check and inspect your fireplace, including making sure the flue operates properly and checking your firebrick.
4. Plumbing: Burst pipes from freezing can cause some of the most expensive repairs in the home. Make sure you protect your plumbing from freezing with techniques such as heating and insulating your pipes. It is also critically important to remove your hoses from any outside faucets.
5. Insulation: The simple process of insulating can reduce energy costs. this includes getting an insulating blanket for your water heater, foam sealing gaskets for outlets and blocking fireplace drafts with a piece of fiberglass insulation.
6. Weather-stripping: An easy way to reduce you heating bill from infiltration is to reduce these drafts of doors and windows with simple weather-stripping.
7. Roof and Gutters: Check your roof and gutters for leaves and debris. Frozen wet leaves in gutters are major source of damage. Protect your gutters with a gutter protection system like GutterBrush.
   
8. Sprinkler System: Another key element of your home winterization plan is winterizing your sprinkler system to prevent your lines from bursting.
9. Landscape: Lastly comes preparing your landscape and equipment for the winter including outdoor deck, furniture and lawn equipment preparation.

By taking a few hours and preparing your home for winter you can get closer to a trouble free winter and just sit back and enjoy the scenery!

I need GutterBrush? Yes you do.

Clogged gutters can cause major problems for your home. As water backs up, it can flow behind the gutters saturating your fascia board and trapping moisture. Over time this moisture will potentially result in rot, mold and mildew. Protect your home with the simple, affordable, and most effective gutter guard available today. Your home is a big investment and we all want to protect our investments so why not take a step towards doing that with GutterBrush? GutterBrush is a no nonsense Gutter Protection System that makes gutter protection technology available to you in a simple and easy form while remaining affordable. Our GutterBrush system is so straightforward, it’s the obvious choice. Save time, money and protect your home and family with the GutterBrush Simple Gutter Guard System.

The GutterBush gutter guard gutter protection system from GutterBrush Guys, Ltd. will help prevent autumn leaves and other seasonal debris from clogging your gutters and potentially damaging your home and landscaping. Our GutterBrush gutter guard is also a great home improvement idea and one you should consider unless you enjoy cleaning clogged gutters and downspouts every year.

The GutterBrush gutter protection system helps carry leaves, seeds, pine needles, and other debris off the roof during rainfall, allowing rain to enter the gutters but preventing leaves and everything else you don’t want in the gutter from entering the gutters. The leaves and debris slide off the cylindrical gutter guard and fall to the ground below keeping your gutters free of leaves, needles, debris and the like.  Another bonus of using GutterBrush is that they can be installed by anyone who is comfortable on a ladder and this usually only takes, on average, about a couple of hours to install 120 linear feet of GutterBrush including cleaning the gutters.

You can’t go wrong with our simple, affordable, and effective GutterBrush gutter guard system for protecting your gutters this fall and your home year round. Please contact us at 888-397-9433 or info@gutterbrush.com with any questions you might have or to get your very own GutterBrush.

So you think a few leaves and twigs in your gutters are harmless? Think again. Regular gutter cleaning is arguably the single most important key to avoiding major and expensive home repairs.

Gutters perform one duty: controlling the water around your home. If debris keeps gutters from doing their job, you can wind up with some serious problems. By following these simple gutter cleaning tips, you can help avoid major and expensive home repairs.

• Leaking Gutters: Clogged gutters are the number one cause of basement water problems. When gutters are clogged, roof water overflows and accumulates around the foundation. If this happens, basement leaks may be moments away.
• Cracked Foundations: Clogged gutters can cause excess water against the foundation wall to weaken the footing and lead to foundation wall cracks. This is particularly true in the colder months when built-up water at the foundation freezes and causes a condition known as “frost-heave” which can cause severe cracks to foundation walls.
• Rotten Wood: Water backing up from clogged gutters will cause moisture damage to the wood fascia around the house. The rotted area will quickly get worse if the leak is not eliminated by cleaning the gutters.
• Leaking Roofs: In winter, ice dams can form on top of clogged gutters. Snow then builds up across the top of the clogged gutter and freezes. During the next thaw, water running off the roof is blocked by the frozen snow and backs up into the house. This can lead to major wall and ceiling damage.
• Slippery Sidewalks: Overflowing gutters can deposit water on walks and driveways where it can freeze and cause a tripping hazard. Avoid this problem by keeping gutters clean and the spouts extended away from any traffic areas.
• Cracked Driveways: Misdirected and clogged gutter spouts often cause driveways and walks to sag and crack.
• Washed Out Landscaping: Any newly installed plants, grass or trees can be killed by excess water from clogged gutters. Overflowing gutters can cause severe erosion and put an early end to young plantings.
• Wood Destroying Insects: Bugs love moisture. Keeping gutters free of clogs and keeping the soil dry around the foundation perimeter can force bugs to go elsewhere for a tasty snack of dampened two-by-four.

If you think your gutters need a good cleaning, here are some important tips to follow:

Safety First: If you are not comfortable with heights or don’t use tall ladders regularly, cleaning gutters is not a job for you. Consider hiring a handyman to help. If you decide to do the gutter cleaning job yourself, watch out for hidden hazards like electric lines and bee’s nests.

Clean Gutters: Using a ladder, work gloves and a hose, clear the gutters beginning at one end and moving to the other. Always work from the ladder and not from the roof, where you could fall off. If you find any loose gutter sections, tighten them up as you go along. It may help to have a supply of long lag bolts to use when replacing loose or missing gutter spikes. Lag bolts won’t pull out like spikes, so you usually don’t have to do this more than once.

Spray Spouts: When you get to the end of the gutter where the spout is, spray the hose down the gutter spout to make sure it’s clear. If the spout is clogged, water will back up and cause problems. Clearing clogged spouts can be a chore. Try removing the debris from both ends and flushing out the rest with a hose. If this doesn’t work you may need to take the spout apart to clear it. Once the spouts are clear, make sure the discharge end is extended at least 4 to 6 feet away from the house to avoid problems.

Install Gutter Guards: Once the gutter system is cleaned and properly adjusted, consider installing gutter guards such as GutterBrush to avoid a repeat performance in the future.

There are many types of gutter guards available. Filter types work very well. Screens can be effective in the short run but eventually allow debris to get through. Clogs will reoccur and can be even harder to clear since the screens will need to be removed first. Leaf blocking guards, which look like a metal louver that is installed above the gutter, are a more costly but more effective option at keeping leaves off gutters. The louvers allow water to leak into the gutter while washing leaves over the side.

No matter what gutter product you choose, it is important that you check gutters periodically as well as be mindful of signs of clogging like over-flowing in a rainstorm.  Maintaining a clean gutter is the single most effective way to avoid a whole host of serious and expensive problems.

Even though great strides have been made in achieving equality in both the workplace and household, women are usually still the ones who do the household chores and the home cleaning tasks. However, when it comes to cleaning clogged gutters, most women are not looking to engage in this task and often frown at the idea of getting their hands covered in the dark, smelly muck in the gutters. Even independent minded women who do not usually ask favors from men, wouldn’t have the interest of performing a cleaning task which may leave their hands smelling unpleasant for weeks. However, GutterBrush gutter guard has delighted many women since its introduction to the market seven years ago. Aside from being an effective gutter guard against leaves and falling debris that can cause clogs and water overflow in gutters, there are at least three reasons why this simple gutter protection system has attracted the interest and gained the favor of female customers.

First, it is the easy installment feature of GutterBrush that curries favor with the ladies. Many women are not very interested in technical features and thus, they tend to get easily bored with most talk about complex gutter protection systems that require professional installation or routine maintenance. GutterBrush harnesses  a simple design of repelling/blocking debris while allowing water to flow right on through. GutterBrush is so simple, there is not even a need for a sales representative to explain how the product works and how the product is installed. It can be done simply and easily.

The second reason is that GutterBrush greatly reduces any gutter maintenance needed to keep them working properly.  Any product that does not require daily or weekly cleaning is likely to be appealing to everyone. Thus, a gutter protection product such as GutterBrush that barely needs maintenance once or twice a year is certainly an irresistible product to the do it yourself homeowner and this obviously includes a large population of women who fit that bill.

The third reason this product is so very appealing is the price. Both men and women are probably very interested in economical products and services in these challenging times and Gutterbrush fits the bill on both counts. Other systems can cost thousands of dollars to purchase and then have installed where GutterBrush can be purchased and installed for only a few hundred dollars for the average sized home. The bottom line is that everyone can benefit from GutterBrush due to its being simple, affordable and effective.

As always, whenever you start a home improvement or maintenance project safety must always be in the forefront of your mind. that’s right, safety first. Always.