Gutter cleaning, from £30
Gutters fill with leaf litter, moss off the roof and grit off the tiles. When they overflow, the water runs down the wall instead of away into the drain.
What blocks a gutter, and how fast
Leaves are only part of it. A gutter fills with moss washed off the tiles and grit worn off the surface of concrete. Add fragments of old felt, and whatever the birds bring up there.
Under a big tree it can block in a single autumn. On an open plot with nothing overhanging, the same gutter can go years without needing anything.
What an overflowing gutter does to a wall
Water spilling over the front edge lands at the base of the wall and splashes back up it. Water running out of a split joint soaks one strip of brick or render all winter.
A wet wall stays cold, and a cold wall grows a green streak and then black mould inside. Most damp patches blamed on rising damp are a gutter doing this for a few years.
How much should I pay to have my gutters cleaned?
Gutter cleaning from £30. That is the figure printed on our own leaflet, and it is the only price on this site. What any particular job costs depends on the house, so ring and ask.
The advice either way is free. If your gutters do not need doing yet, we will say so.
Where the water is supposed to go
A gutter is only half the system. It falls towards a downpipe, and the downpipe carries the water to a gully or a drain. Clear the gutter, leave the downpipe blocked, and you have moved the problem rather than fixed it.
A blocked gully at the bottom does the same thing. It is worth lifting the grate and having a look while the ladder is out anyway.
Where this work is covered
Gutter cleaning is one of the jobs we cover from Surrey, in Crawley, Brighton, Horsham, Reigate, Redhill and Dorking. Outside that list, ring and ask first.
Mature trees stand over a lot of the housing in Horsham, and a gutter under a big tree fills every autumn without fail.
How the job goes
What happens when we do your gutter cleaning
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01Clear the run
The debris comes out of the gutter rather than being pushed along it. Wet leaf mould shoved along the run only blocks the outlet at the end.
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02Clear the outlet
The outlet at the top of the downpipe blocks first, because everything funnels into it. The pipe below gets checked and cleared through.
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03Flush it
Water goes down the run to check it flows to the outlet and comes out at the bottom. A gutter still holding water after that has a fall problem, not a blockage.
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04Tell you what we found
Split joints, a sagging run, brackets pulling out or a soft board behind the gutter all get pointed out. Whether you do anything about them is up to you.
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05Clear up
What comes out of the gutter goes with us, not onto the beds or the path.
Common questions
- How often do gutters need clearing?
- It depends on the trees, not on the calendar. A gutter with nothing overhanging it can go years. Under a big tree that drops its leaves, once a year after leaf fall, and sometimes twice.
- How do I know if my gutters are blocked?
- Look at them during heavy rain. Water spilling over the front edge means it is not getting away. So does a curtain of it pouring out at one joint, or a green streak down the wall underneath.
- Will the moss just come back?
- If there is moss on the roof, yes. Rain washes it off the tiles into the gutter every year. Clearing the gutter deals with what is in the gutter, not with what is growing on the roof.
- My gutter drips at a joint. Is that a cleaning job?
- No. A joint that drips has a perished seal or has been pulled out of line, and clearing it out will not change that. It is a small repair, and we will tell you which of the two you have while we are up there.
Roofing advice on this
Plain answers to the questions we get asked most about this work, written before you ask us for a price.
Get an estimate
Tell us what the roof is doing
Estimates and advice are free. Ring and describe the problem, or send a photograph of it, and you will get a straight answer about whether it needs a repair or a new roof.
All work guaranteed.
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