At the beginning of a new year, with nearly thirty years of property maintenance behind us, we have been reflecting on the old adage “ a penny of prevention saves a pound of cure”. Every day as we work on dozens of residential dwellings and commercial buildings of all types and descriptions we see examples of the enduring truth of this old saying.
Something as simple as a regular gutter and down pipe clean can avert a whole world of pain. Every day we see examples where this hasn’t been carried out and the resulting damage to the property is substantial. In the best possible scenario, the weight of accumulated debris has only broken the mounting brackets and the gutter has sagged a bit, and maybe only damaged a section of a few metres.
Moving on up the potential problem scale we next get to guttering badly rotted because it never dries out due to holding damp material. Generally it means replace the whole lot, and that is thousands of dollars. But the potential downside doesn’t stop there, because if the gutter is overflowing due to being full that water is probably overflowing into your house. Generally speaking water in your house is not considered a good thing unless it is coming out of a tap, and when it is leaking in at gutter level it is busy rotting your fascia’s and soffits, and then heading on in to have a go at your framing and ceiling and wall linings. Once its in there, it’s a big expensive job to fix it up. And the worst part is its completely avoidable by having your gutters and downpipes checked and cleaned every year.