Ah yes… the age old question of, how do gutters get clogged??
Well my curious homeowner, your gutters get clogged because leaves and debris fall onto your roof and settle into your gutters…
I think gutters are more like leaf collectors than rain water collectors, don’t you??
Stick with me, this gets better…
So your gutter's main job is to collect rainwater from your roof and then run it to your downspout…
To make it easy for the gutters, us plumbers angle the gutters down towards the downspouts…
And this is where the problems start to arise…
You see, the main reason your gutters get clogged is because, when you have a gutter that runs towards a downpipe and then leaves fall into that gutter, the rainwater will run into the downpipe but it also takes a bunch of those leaves with it…
And where do you think these leaves end up??
That’s right, they travel into the downspout as well…
These cheeky buggers like to get stuck in your downspout and clog it up…
Then to make matters worse…
The leaves keep falling and clogging up inside your gutters…
Do you know what happens next??
If you never clean your gutters, leaves sit there and turn into mulch…
And wouldn’t you know it…
It’s some of the highest quality top soil you'll ever see!!
You could bag it up and sell it for a pretty penny…
Hmmm, I just had a great business idea!
I digress…
Where were we??
Oh yeah…
Now these gutters are getting really clogged up…
And you’ve now got a great garden bed just waiting to sprout out a lovely gutter garden…
These gutter gardens can get pretty impressive…
Can you see how gutters get clogged??
It’s at about this time that someone also says…
But I don’t have any trees near my home to clog up the gutters…
Well, this is a really curious case isn’t it?
Ok, well have you ever cleaned and polished your car up really nice and shiny?
Did you ever drive your nice clean car in the rain and see how dirty it got?
Yep, that’s because wind and rain carries dirt with it…
Now this dirt can blow up into your gutters and roof…
Then the rain washes it all down into your gutters…
When this process happens over and over again, you get that nice topsoil sitting in your gutters…
No leaves, just high quality top soil…
And…
That soil gets washed towards your downpipes…
And…
You get weeds growing up right from your downpipe, clogging your gutters…
See how easily your gutter can get clogged up??
Well, that’s about all I’ve got time for today so I think I’ll leave it there…
I hope you now understand how gutters get clogged…
You might also like to know how to prevent gutter clogs…
In my experience, that's usually the next step in this whole clogged gutter situation…
Either way, I hope you found some highly entertaining and valuable information in this explanation and I hope to see you again reading my posts…
That’s it from me…
Peace,
Jason…
