Your home's gutters play a crucial role in directing water off your roof and away from your foundation. However, these pieces of metal may not last forever. Here are a few signs that your gutters actually need to be replaced: 

Sagging

Your gutters work by being installed on a slight incline. Though it may not look like it from the ground, the incline does exist, or else the water wouldn't flow to the downspout. What you want to watch out for are gutters that are sagging in places, which is allowing water to collect within the gutters instead of flowing out of them.

Inspect the gutters to make sure there is no debris in it that could be causing a clog. If the gutters are clear and it looks like an actual malfunction of the gutters, you'll need to replace the run on your home.

Cracking

The incline of the gutters may be intact, but you are experiencing a problem with gutters that have cracks in them. While cracked gutters can be repaired, it is not a guarantee the repair will hold, and the crack will not reform. The problem with cracks is that it will cause water to leak out of the gutter and flow onto your home or around the foundation, negating the entire purpose of having the gutters installed. Replace the gutter early before the entire section fails.

Rusting

An early warning sign that your gutters are about to fail is rust. Rust can form because the paint has worn away or peeled off the gutter, exposing the metal underneath. The rust is essentially the early stages of the metal failing, and soon enough a hole will form in the gutters.

Ignoring rust on your gutters is just delaying the inevitable. You can replace them now or replace them later, so you are better off taking care of the replacement while it is not an emergency.

Poor Installation

The gutters may be in great shape with none of the previous warning signs, but a poor installation is causing them to not work properly. Depending on how bad the installation was, you may not be able to salvage your existing gutters. Problems can range from not having downspouts in the right locations to not having any incline at all.

Reach out to a local gutter installation company to find out how they can install new gutters on your home.