It’s been a long summer. The sun and heat have been working on your home for the last 8 months. So what does that mean?
Well for starters, it is time to caulk your home again and address the gaps. These are the entrance points for cold air. They also work as the exits for your heat and energy loss. These gaps and holes in the caulk serve as inlets for spiders, bees, wasps, ants, centipedes, and more. Cold fronts drive pests and rodents into your home, where it is warm. Where they can and will live out the winter.
That noise you hear in the attic? That mystery creature got in there somehow. It now it lives there, having a running back and forth party every night. What is it? Who knows. It could be mice, rats, squirrels, or larger. All of the mention do two things we know for certain, chew and leave behind feces. They chew wood structure, electrical, heating and air wiring, ducting, seasonal decorations, and those precious items you are holding onto stored up in the attic. You have seen the destruction and been grossed out.
Caulking the exterior of your home can prevent this from happening. It also puts a set of eyes up on ladders, close up to your home where you don’t traditionally get close to. We see the holes chewed through soffit and fascia boards where these rodents go in through.
Let’s talk gutters now. It has been a full year of all four seasons, and winter is now around the corner. It’s been a dry summer for the most part. What does this mean to your gutters and roof? It means all of the branch breaks, squirrels storing nuts and acorns, fallen leaves, fallen debris, shingle granules, and whatever else has been building up there in your gutters. The gutter catch all of this. No real rain has come along strong enough to keep these purged, washed out, and free of debris. Now this is all up there, collectively, and working as a dam, like from a beaver.
A couple of things can and will go wrong now. The water will now build up, weighing your gutters down. This can cause the gutters to pull away from the fascia boards. It pulls the screws out causing damage to the fascia and the gutters. Full gutters cause the water to run over the sides of the gutters. It cause the water to meet the roof line. This is soaked up into the roof decking, fascia board, your internal frame structure, and eventually can cause damage to insulation, sheetrock, and more as shown here.
All of this is preventable with maintenance. Cleaning out the gutters in the spring and fall can help avoid all of this unnecessary damage to your home. This is your investment, where children run, learn, and play. Gutter cleaning is a one to two day job for the DC and H team, depending upon the size of your home.
Scheduling for caulking and or gutter cleaning is easy! We serve all of North Texas. Aren’t sure? Reach out and ask. I’ll bet the answer is yes. Click now on the “Contact Us” tab.
– Willie Grubaugh / President DC and H Construction
