When it starts raining outside an incredible amount of water beats down on the roof of your house. Your house principally does the job of protecting your house and everything in it from this rain. Most roofs are sloped in order that the water can run off and prevent heavy collections of rainwater gathering in pockets all over the roof. If this were to happen the roof can become severely damaged and eventually holes will form where the rainwater once was (it would now be underneath the hole that has formed).
The damage that rainwater can cause.
If left to it’s own devices the rain water would run down the sloped roof and subsequently continue to pour down the wall of the house passing over window frames, windows, door frames, doors and possibly onto the damp proofing at the bottom of the house. Here it would collect in puddles that would take a long time to evaporate. All in all this would cause damage to the structure of your house, it can rot away wooden window and door frames and cause cracks in paving amongst other problems. During winter this damage does not take long to manifest itself and can cause further damage itself.
What drainpipes do.
The gutter and down pipes are there to prevent this from occurring. They collect the rainwater once it has reached the end of its descent. From there the slight slope in the guttering will encourage the rain water into the down pipe, subsequently carrying it down into the drain and safely away.
The effects of improperly pitched gutters.
The effect of having improperly pitched gutters can have a similar effect, and in some cases it can be even worse. Improperly pitched gutters that are pitched away from the wall with even a slight gap is the equivalent of having no gutter whatsoever and you will face similar problems. However if you have improperly pitched gutters that cause all the rain water to collect in one area, this rainwater is then likely to run down one area of the wall.
Instead of all the rainwater from one day or one week being spread over the whole wall it is now being concentrated in just one area. The power of the water can erode the brickwork and the cement work causing serious structural damage and internal damp and rot. Both of these occurrences will cost you a lot more to right than having your drainpipe fixed or even having your improperly pitched gutters completely ripped down and replaced.
The dire consequences of improperly pitched gutters.
Improperly pitched gutters can end up costing you a very large amount of money and it is important that you regularly check that everything is running smoothly. You can easily tell whether a gutter is pitched properly by watching when it rains. However, you should have it checked regularly when you have your roof checked to make sure that the water isn’t running back into the roof because this will also cause serious damage and it is difficult to tell unless you know what you are looking for.
