The 3 Main Reasons your gutters are overflowing and the easiest way to fix them…
So your gutters are overflowing hey??
Well, the good news is that overflowing gutters are usually caused by one of 6 reasons…
What the?
The headline said 3 reasons and now I’m telling you there’re 6??
In all honesty, everytime I come across an overflowing gutter it’s usually one of these 3 main culprits…
Everynow and then it’s one of the other 3 but very rarely…
To make this easy for you, I’ll explain the 3 most common causes so you can start with those and then list the other 3 just in case you need them…
Sound good?
Ok, let’s get to it…
Your Gutters are Overflowing because your Gutters need to be cleaned…
Truth be told, this really is the most common cause of overflowing gutters…
In case you didn’t know, I clean gutters for a living and most homeowners have no idea what is going on up there…
Check this out…
This is a nice little gutter garden that the owner couldn’t see from the ground…
As you can imagine, any rain water that hits these gutters is going to overflow…
So if your gutters are clogged or overflowing, this is that first thing to check…
You’ll obviously need a ladder to take a look so make sure you are up to speed with how to set your ladder up properly
If you get up there and you see anything like this…
If you notice, the grass in the gutters is sitting below the top of the gutter…
If your gutters are clogged up like this, you won’t even know unless they overflow…
Believe me, this is more common than you would think…
I clean gutters for a living and nobody calls me until their gutters look like this…
We’ll, you just found the source of your overflowing gutter…
Solution??
You’re gonna have to clean them out…
Or call a gutter cleaning service to do it for you…
Problem solved…
When the next storm hits, your gutters will be flowing perfectly…
Thanks for stopping by…
Hope you enjoyed this article…
What’s that?
Your gutters are overflowing but they’re not clogged??
Oh man!!
There’s always one!!
Ok, if your gutters are already cleaned then the next thing to check is…
It could be a blocked Downpipe causing your gutters to overflow…
The old blocked downpipe is another common reason for your gutters to overflow…
I see it all the time…
You see, your gutters are designed to flow towards the downpipes…
And if anything should fall into your gutters like leaves or sticks, the rain water will push them towards the downpipes…
This can cause a huge problem…
One small build up of leaves over a downpipe can stop the water from entering the down pipe and cause it to overflow or even flood back under your roof line…
So you’ve already got your ladder out, while you’re up there, go around and check to see that your downpipes are not blocked up…
When you look in from the top, you might see something like this…
Just reach in there and get as much out as you can…
If you can’t get it all out, you can blast it with a garden hose…
That usually does the trick…
One thing to keep in mind with blocked downpipes…
If you have a down pipe with bends like this…
It could be hard to notice a blockage if it’s in the bend…
See the rust in the picture above?
That’s a sign that you have a blockage in the bend…
So while you’re up there, run the hose down each downpipe for a couple of minutes just to make sure it’s flowing properly…
If you do have a blocked downpipe, it’s usually just at the top so once you clear it like I suggested above, you should be good to go…
But if you have clean gutters, and your downpipes are clear and your gutters are still overflowing then maybe it could be this next problem…
Your Gutters could be falling the wrong way…
This is actually a really common problem that I come across…
You see, your gutters are supposed to be tilted on an angle so that the water will flow towards the downpipes…
And for some reason, a lot of gutters that I clean are falling the wrong way or even sitting flat with no fall at all…
This means that your gutters will fill up and overflow…
It also means that no matter what, your gutters are always sitting with water in them…
And that’s the quickest way for your gutters to rust out…
So how do you know if your gutters are sitting flat or falling the wrong way?
I have 2 methods for you…
The first is to go along with a spirit level like this one here…
Just put it flat against the bottom of your gutters…
If your downpipe is on the right, you want the bubble on the level to be sitting left of the lines like this…
This means the gutters are falling towards the downpipes and you should be ok…
Go around and check all of the gutters…
The second way to check the fall of your gutters is to spray water in them and see how it flows in your gutters…
Does the water flow towards the downpipe?
Does it flow the other way??
Or does it just sit and pool in your gutters???
If the water doesn’t flow towards the downpipes, then you have a bit of a problem…
The only way to correct a gutter falling the wrong way is to take them off and reset them with the proper fall…
Might want to call a plumber for this one…
At least now you know what’s causing your gutters to overflow…
Now you know the 3 most common reasons your gutters are overflowing…
I suggest eliminating those 3 first…
In my experience it’s usually one of those 3…
But if you’re one of the unfortunate ones who’s gutters are still overflowing even after following my expert advice, then I have some bonus solutions for you…
Ok fingers crossed…
Your gutters could be overflowing because…
Your stormwater is blocked…
Now this could be the culprit if your gutters are overflowing but don’t seem to be clogged…
The next time your gutters are overflowing, go out and tap on the downpipes…
Does it sound hollow or is it filled with water?
If your downpipes are filled with water, then you have a blockage in your stormwater pipes in the ground…
Before you continue on…
If your downpipes are feeding into a water tank then they will be full and it doesn’t mean you have a blockage…
I’m not going to explain the set up of the pipes into the water tank but just know that your pipes are supposed to be full of water in this situation…
But if your pipes aren’t feeding a tank and they are full, then you have a stormwater blockage…
Usually you’ll have some water spraying out from the bottom where the downpipe enters the adapter just before it disappears into the ground…
If you see this…
Yep, you have a stormwater blockage…
I’m guessing you want to know how to fix this??
Well, you can slide this downpipe up and out of the adaptor then try to pull the blockage out with your hand…
Or you can try to force a garden hose down there to free the blockage…
But in most cases, you’ll need to call a plumber to fix this one…
My experience is that most times it’s a broken pipe that has tree roots growing in it…
This needs to be dug up and replaced…
If you don’t have the budget for a plumber then leave the downpipe out of the adaptor and try to direct the water away from your home…
I recommend calling a plumber…
Anyway, let’s look at the next possible cause of your gutters overflowing…
Not enough downpipes on older homes…
When I clean gutters, I always flush the gutters out with a pressure hose…
And a common problem I find with a lot of older homes is that they don’t have enough downpipes…
In good homes, each length of gutter will have its own downpipe…
And the long lengths will have 1 on each end…
Possible another one in the middle…
If I have to push the water around multiple bends before it reaches a downpipe, then you’ll have problems with your gutters overflowing in the heavier rain falls…
If it’s a real problem for you then look into getting a couple of extra downpipes installed…
Look at the problem sections that overflow and see if you could put an extra downpipe in that section of guttering…
You will most likely have to then connect it back into the stormwater that’s in the ground which makes it quite a big job…
But you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, right?
Anyay…
Sometimes you can do everything I’ve mentioned above and still have overflowing problems…
And the reason is…
Maybe the rain was just too heavy that day…
If you see your gutters overflowing, you need to ask yourself…
Do they always overflow when it rains or do you only notice your gutter overflowing in heavy rain??
It would be great if our homes are ready to handle every extreme condition that is thrown at it, but sometimes, it’s just not the case…
If your gutters don’t always overflow and you’ve checked everything I’ve mentioned above, then maybe it’s a “once a year” type of thing and not worth worrying about…
Do you know what I mean??
As long as it’s not causing any damage to your home, then it should be ok to overflow that one time when the rain was unusually heavy…
Well we’ve covered a lot here in the article…
I hope you’ve found the solution to your problem…
Cause that’s all I’ve got for ya…
Thanks for coming along for the ride…
If you have any questions, drop a comment below and I’ll be sure to try and answer your questions…
Sincerely,
Jason — The Guy Who’s Seen a Lot of Overflowing Gutters and Knows What He’s Talking About…
