As a homeowner, it can seem like you are always dealing with repairs. Nevertheless, if you want to avoid hard work and expense, keeping your gutters in good working order is essential. In addition to hiring a professional contractor, you can also do a few of these chores yourself. Altogether, there are seven important tips for repairing and cleaning your gutters to keep your long-term home maintenance costs low.

Working on gutters requires safety. Before you get excited about doing your own repairs, keep in mind that you will need to evaluate safety before you start working. For example, in order to access gutters, you will need to obtain a ladder. You will also need to figure out how to station your tools while you do your work. In general, having a level surface for all four legs of the ladder will keep you safe. Having someone to hold the ladder will also add some stability. One last tip for working on ladders is that you will need to be careful not to work too vigorously. Doing so can cause the ladder to become unstable.

Working with excessive rain. On occasion, rain can fall at an unexpectedly high rate. In these instances, water can cascade over the edge of the gutters instead of staying inside of them. The bad news is that this water can flood the basement or cause damage to the foundation. Over time, this can damage the lumber behind your gutters (fascia). In these cases, you may need to replace the gutters with deeper ones. However, one of the biggest issues is that leaves and other debris are blocking your gutters or drain pipe.

Examining and replacing rivets. If you look at your gutters and downspout, you may notice that they are put together with pieces of metal that resemble nails. These are commonly called rivets and they occasionally become dislodged. Replacing them is easy and keeps the gutters from distributing water to unfavorable areas of the yard.

Clean gutters with the right tools. It is obvious that you will need a ladder to clean your gutters, but some homeowners give up on the task because they do not know what the best tools are. Since gutters are typically full of rotting organic debris, you can expect bad smells and slime. To keep clean, wear a long sleeve shirt and a pair of plastic dishwashing gloves. A bucket and a plastic scoop are also good tools for completing a gutter cleaning task.

Keep the gutter trash off of your lawn. As you are clearing out your gutters, you may find that you have more than your bucket can accommodate. In these cases, it may be tempting to dump all of the mucky decomposed leaves onto the lawn. Sadly, this does not act as fertilizer, and can kill your grass instead. To avoid this, use a piece of disposable sheet plastic. As you move the ladder around the house, you can also move your plastic sheeting with your gutter garbage on it.

Renovating sagging gutters. As long as the piece of wood behind them is intact, your sagging gutters can be repaired. This is also a good time to see if the nails holding the gutters have penetrated the rafter. To make this repair, you will need to get gutter spikes and a fastener. One final area you can fine-tune while you are repairing your sagging gutters is the silicon sealing.

Preventing future gutter cleanings. Some homeowners simply do not have the time or ability to keep their gutters cleaned. For homeowners interested in alternatives, a professional contractor can install mesh covers to your gutters. Other helpful solutions are porous foam and clip-on grates. Of course, if all of these projects for cleaning gutters seem like a handful, professional contractors are always one call away.