Lymington gutter cleaning, three storeys up

Two quite different sorts of building, and the older one takes most of the time.

Getting to a town frontage. Three storeys, a footway underneath and often no rear access at all. That rules out working off a ladder for anything more than a look, because clearing a run properly means both hands and a long time in one place. It is a tower where there is room to stand one, and a scaffold where there is not, and if either has to sit on the public footway that needs a licence from the highway authority before the day. The work at height rules are why the platform is a priced line rather than something absorbed into a rate.

Cast iron, hoppers and parapets. The older buildings run to cast iron on rise and fall brackets, with hopper heads collecting two or three runs into one pipe, and in places a gutter set behind a parapet where nothing can be seen from the street. Those are the ones that do damage, because a blockage behind a parapet backs up and discharges inside the building rather than over a front edge. Everything is emptied by hand, the hoppers dug out and flushed, and the lead in a parapet or box gutter looked at for splits.

Proving it with water. Once each run is empty, water goes in at the far end and we watch it leave at the shoe. A pipe boxed into a wall or running down a light well gets a camera rather than a guess. On a long shared frontage the downpipe often serves more than one property, so we say plainly whose length was blocked.

Repairs and the salt behind them. Close to the water the fixings suffer: bolts through cast iron sockets seize and swell, brackets rust out of soft render and screws through a fascia give up. A dropped run is re-hung and realigned to a fall, a weeping joint gets a new union seal or a re-bedded socket, and anything cracked is photographed and priced separately.

What the overflow has reached. Fascia, soffit, then painted brickwork or render, then damp inside and a ceiling stain under a parapet gutter. Green staining down one strip of wall is the usual sign, and it dates the fault.

No rate per square metre, because a metre of gutter behind a conifer and a metre on an open gable are not the same metre.

Getting to it. A three storey town house with the run over a footway, a semi out towards Pennington with a normal two storey eaves, and a bungalow with a long low rear length are three different jobs before anybody opens a van. A bungalow run comes off a ladder or a pole, a three storey gable wants a tower, and a valley gutter between two roofs wants a proper platform. The work at height rules are why the access is a priced line rather than something absorbed into a rate.

What is in it, and how far it has travelled. Leaf litter lifts out in minutes. Moss washed off the tiles sets into a wet mat that has to be dug out, and silt in a long run behind a hedge is heavier and slower than anything a photograph shows. The number of outlets matters more than the length, because that is where it packs.

Whether it is a clean or a repair. A joint that drips once it is running again, a downpipe blocked at the shoe, a length of plastic that has sagged between brackets: none of that is clearing, and it is the part that decides whether you are booking an hour or half a day.

Comparing quotes? Ask whether the downpipes are being run through or just the gutter cleared, whether the outlets and hoppers are checked, whether it is a clear or a clear and a check for leaks, and who takes the debris away. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.

In the older parts of Lymington the cost of a gutter clean is mostly the cost of standing next to it. A three storey frontage with the pavement underneath cannot be worked from a ladder, there is frequently no way through to the back, and a tower or a scaffold on a public footway needs permission and a day booked around it. That is not padding on a quote. It is the difference between a job done properly once and a job half done from the top of a ladder by somebody in a hurry.

So it is worth planning around the access rather than around the gutter. If the run needs clearing and the paintwork, the fascia or a slipped slate also want attention, get the lot looked at together and done off one platform. Split it into three visits and you pay for the platform three times, and the platform is the part of the price that does not get cheaper. Ask any quote to show the access as its own line so you can see what is clearing and what is standing there.

We cover Lymington, Pennington, Boldre, Everton and up towards Brockenhurst, broadly SO41, under New Forest District Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.