How much rain does my roof get?
You’ll probably be shocked to learn just how much water pummels Indiana roofs each year. The average Indiana home of just 1700 square feet — much smaller than the typical Fishers or Carmel home, mind you — saw 49.75 inches of rainfall last year. That adds up to more than 68,000 gallons of water rushing over your roof, and (hopefully) through your gutters. That’s not just a ton of water, it’s more than 278 tons. If your home is larger than that mark, which is the case for the majority of our customers, you can easily double or triple that figure.
Stated eloquently, that’s a lot of water. It’s this immense and perpetual onslaught of water that slowly wears down your roof by carrying away loose material, especially on shingled roofs. This loose material is the single most common cause of the clogged gutters and drainage systems we see in Fishers and the rest of greater Indianapolis, even more so than leaves! More than enough material can be washed down each year to cause clogs and overflows completely by itself, and even a small build up can make it much harder for other debris like tree litter to flow through unimpeded.
Hopefully considering this impressive volume might make it easier to understand the importance of maintaining a sealed structure with proper drainage. If even a small fraction of those 68,000 gallons makes it anywhere inside your home, you’re in for a pretty bad day. Even worse, you probably won’t have any idea how extensive the damage has become until you find a few inches of water in your basement or find out about it right when you’re trying to sell your home. So let’s avoid all of that headache, and book your appointment with Done Gutter in just a few seconds!
CITATIONS AND NOTES:
Indianapolis Precipitation Scorecard
Average Indiana Home Size
Water Volume of Rainfall
Calculating Roof Area
Bonus fact: Indianapolis has seen an average of 45 inches of rain per year from 2010 to present. Each inch of rain equates to .623 gallons per square foot, or 17,387,743 gallons per square mile per inch of rainfall. Multiplied over our 367.97 square miles, we reach the incredible sum of 287,765,492,544 gallons of rainfall per year across Indianapolis alone. That’s 327,000 gallons for every resident; now you know a truly useless fact. No charge. Thanks for reading!
What about when it’s too DRY? Check out the recent Redfin article we were featured in:
How to Prepare Your Home for Drought
As climate change worsens, extreme weather is becoming increasingly common. Droughts are
a poignant example, growing in frequency and severity, especially in the U.S. Many
homeowners are seeing the effects of drought through water use restrictions and mandatory
cutbacks.
