Gutter Cleaning

Most gutter work around here gets done with a leaf blower from the roof. The debris goes over the side, lands in your beds, and the wet sludge packed into the low end of the run never moves. We clean by hand instead. Every section, off a ladder, scooped into a bucket. It gets bagged and it leaves with us.

Downspouts are where the real clogs sit. Leaves and shingle grit pack into the elbow at the top and the bend down at grade, and a blower will not touch either one. We flush every spout from the high end and watch water run out the bottom. If one is blocked, we clear it. Nothing gets called done until we have seen it flow.

A clogged gutter costs more in New England than it does most places. Water that cannot drain sits against the fascia and rots the board from behind, and you find out when the wood is soft and the gutter is pulling loose. In winter the same backup feeds ice dams. Snow melts on the upper slope, runs down, hits a frozen packed gutter, and backs up under the shingle edge. A fall cleaning is cheap ice dam insurance.

Timing out here follows the trees. Maples let go through October, but the oaks hold on into November and sometimes past Thanksgiving. Clean too early and you are doing it twice. Most homes in the Quiet Corner do fine on two visits, one in spring and one in late fall once the oaks finish. With mature oaks over the roof, plan on three.

While we are up there we check the hangers, the seams, and the fascia behind the gutter, and we tell you what we find. Photos, no sales pitch. If the roof above is streaked with algae, we will say so, because that is a roof cleaning job and not a gutter one.