Leaks behind gutters or inside walls or siding

[Dave]

I thought I had some sort of intermittant roof leak. Water was getting inside my living room window frame apparently by getting inside the wall. I finally discovered that the screen wire leaf excluder on my gutters was the cause of the intermittant leak. Water was getting inside the siding which would then flow down the wall. The gutter screen along with a few tree leaves can divert water dripping off the shingles to the back of the gutter, and on this old house the siding does not extend to the very top of the wall because the siding installers did not remove the gutters, so the top edge of the siding is an inch or so lower. Short term solution? Remove the gutter screening or bend it in such a way that a layer of leaves cannot direct water back towards the wall. Long term solution will be to remove the gutters and seal that top edge of the siding and then cover it with a strip of equivalent material.

[Michael Baugh]

And decide if the gutters are really a necessity.