Prepping your home’s gutters for the heavy rain Friday - WHSV

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) – With the remnants of Hurricane Nicole heading up our way come Friday, you want to make sure your home’s gutters don’t have any issues with the heavy rain our area will see.

Use tomorrow to clean out storm drains or gutters if you haven’t already
While the flooding threat is low, this is where we can see some problems especially with the second round in the evening pic.twitter.com/Tl3YbEkPAO

— Aubrey Urbanowicz (@WHSVaubs) November 10, 2022

This storm comes at a time of the year when gutters can be more clogged mainly because of fallen leaves that were on the trees not too long ago. If there is plenty of rain and your gutters are filled with leaves, the gutters will likely fail to divert water from your home which can cause all sorts of problems like mold and mildew collecting and flooded basements.

Charles Sargent, a sales associate at Rocking R Ace Hardware in Harrisonburg, said there are a few things you can do to prevent that from happening.

“If your gutters are full of leaves, you can use one of these [cleaning wands], hook it to your garden hose, and wash your gutters out. Once you get your gutters clean, we have foam pads that you can put in your gutters that will divert the leaves,” said Sargent.

Screens like this one can help prevent your gutters from clogging(WHSV)

Sargent said the best way to find out if your gutters are clean is to run water through them to ensure that water is flowing out.