Most people notice a gutter problem when they see water cascading down the outside of a wall during heavy rain. By that point, the overflow has already been happening for a while. The visible waterfall is usually the result of a downpipe that has been partially blocked for months, and the real damage is often happening at a slower, less visible rate.
When rainwater consistently runs along the outside of a wall rather than through the drainage channel, it begins to saturate the brickwork. In older Reading properties with solid walls, this moisture has nowhere to escape and typically shows up as internal damp patches on upper-storey walls, around window reveals, or on chimney breasts.
The knock-on costs are rarely small
By the time a tradesperson is diagnosing persistent damp inside a bedroom or front room, the remedial work almost always costs considerably more than a routine gutter clean would have. Re-rendering, internal plaster drying, mould treatment, and redecoration can run to several thousand pounds depending on the extent of penetration.
The straightforward fix is to keep the gutters clear so that water moves through the system as intended. For most Reading houses, a clean twice a year (typically in late autumn and again in spring) is enough to stay ahead of the problem.
