Lytchett Matravers gutters, and the plastic behind them
Cleared by hand, outlets proved with water, and an honest look at plastic that has been in the sun since the house was built.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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On a lot of houses in Lytchett Matravers the gutter is the same age as the house, and decades of sun does more to plastic than any amount of leaf does. So a clear here often turns up a second, smaller job underneath.
A blocked Lytchett Matravers gutter is easy enough to spot, wet or dry. Either it is raining and the water is coming over the front edge in a sheet, usually at the same corner every time, or it is dry and somebody has noticed a dark band of green running down the render from one spot under the gutter line. If it is sheeting over as you read this, ring 07435 839745; the corner it comes over tells us which outlet to go to first.
Both get looked at on the same visit. We go along every run from both ends, lift out what is in it by hand or on a vacuum, clear the outlet properly, then put water down each downpipe so you can see it go. Nothing is flushed through into the drain to become somebody else's blockage.
The site visit and the written itemised quote are free. If the run has dropped between its brackets, or a union has split, you get a photograph of it and a separate price, and you are free to have only the clearing done.
The work
What we clear, and what tends to be underneath it
Getting the run empty. Village gutters fill with a mixture: leaf off the hedgerow oaks and limes, blossom and seed in early summer, and moss washed off the tiles every time it rains hard. Loose leaves come out in handfuls. Moss and old sludge have to be dug out, because they set into a wet mat that holds water along the whole length, and the silt in a run nobody has touched for years is heavier than anybody expects.
Outlets, downpipes and where it really blocks. A gutter with an inch of debris in it still works. An outlet with a single clump over it does not, which is why the overflow is always at the same place. We clear each outlet by hand, run the downpipe through from the top, rod it from the shoe where water is backing up, and check the hopper on anything that has one. Then water goes down every run in front of you.
The plastic itself. A good part of this village went up between the 1950s and the 1980s, and a good share of it still has the rainwater goods it was built with. Ultraviolet makes PVC brittle from the outside in, the clips in the brackets lose their grip, and the run starts to sag between fixings. A dripping union can be resealed on the visit once you agree the price. A sagging length to re-hang, or a section that snaps at the touch, is gutter repair in Lytchett Matravers, priced separately.
Cast iron, where it is still there. A handful of older Lytchett Matravers properties in the parish still run cast iron, and it is worth keeping. It is emptied by hand rather than jetted and the bolts through the joints get looked at. Cast iron fails at its fixings rather than all at once, and a bracket screwed into a rotten fascia is the usual reason a length comes down.
What it is doing to the building. The staining on the wall is the least of it. Water over the front edge keeps the brickwork wet all winter, and water behind the gutter runs into the fascia and along the soffit until the board goes soft. Once it reaches a ceiling it has stopped being a gutter job.
How it runs
Clearing gutters and downpipes, then proving they drain
Thomas comes out, walks round the house and looks along each run from the ground, going up a ladder where it is safe, then prices the clear himself. The quote counts the runs, the outlets and the downpipes, notes any repairs as separate items, and includes bagging and removing whatever comes out.
Lytchett Matravers bungalow gutters can mostly be reached with a ladder or cleared from the ground with a vacuum pole. A detached house with an upstairs, or a valley between a garage and the main roof, needs a tower. Nothing gets tipped onto your borders: it is all bagged. We pour water into each outlet to show it runs through to the gully. A leaking joint or broken bracket found along the way gets photographed and priced on its own, so the clean never quietly grows into a repair.
Clearing gutters is maintenance and needs no permission. The one catch in Lytchett Matravers is a listed building, St Mary the Virgin church among them, where original cast iron is protected fabric and swapping it for plastic needs listed building consent from Dorset Council, so we check the address before ordering anything.
Cost
Hedges, moss and outlets: where the time goes
Nobody should give you a flat rate per metre, because a metre under a leylandii hedge and a metre on an open gable are different work.
What is in it. Plenty of plots in Lytchett Matravers have mature hedges and trees along the boundary. Dry leaves lift out in minutes. Moss washed off concrete tiles packs into a heavy wet mat that has to be dug out, and silt in a long run takes longer than any photograph suggests. The number of outlets matters more than the length, since that is where it packs solid.
Height and what is below. A bungalow is ladder or pole work. A detached house with a garage link and a conservatory across the back needs a tower set up around the glass, and a valley gutter between two roofs wants a proper platform. The work at height rules mean access is costed openly.
Clean or repair. A joint that drips once water runs again, a downpipe blocked at the shoe, a length that sags between brackets. Those are repairs, priced separately so you can decide.
Below ground. On clay, a gully or soakaway that has silted up backs up in heavy rain. It is worth a look while we are there.
Ask another quote: are the downpipes being rodded through or only the gutters scooped out, are the hoppers checked with water, and who takes the debris away?
If it is overflowing now
Gutters spilling over in a downpour
When water sheets over the front of a gutter in heavy rain, the cause is nearly always one packed outlet or a blocked downpipe, not the whole length. Watch where it spills, at a corner or halfway along, and mention it when you call.
Water pouring down a wall soaks the brick and soon shows as a damp patch indoors, so phone us rather than filling in the form. On the first visit we clear the blockage and pour water through to prove it runs, and if a split joint is the real culprit we say so. Booked gutter work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Should nobody answer, the missed call is returned as soon as we can manage.
Worth knowing
The gutter is as old as the house, and it shows
A large share of the housing in Lytchett Matravers went up between the 1950s and the 1980s, and that matters more to a gutter than to a roof. Plastic rainwater goods of that generation were half round on fascia brackets about a metre apart, and nobody expected them to sit in full sun for four decades.
Ultraviolet takes the flexibility out. The plastic goes chalky on the south facing runs, the bracket clips lose their spring, and the length starts to move instead of being held to a fall.
So on Lytchett Matravers stock of this age, ask for the clean and the condition check together. It is a few minutes more while somebody is up there, and it tells you whether each run is sound, sagging, or brittle enough to crack when a bracket is undone. A sound run gets cleared and left alone for another year. The other two are repair work, and you get a photograph of each before deciding anything.
Who you are dealing with
Who clears your gutters, and how far we come
Thomas Hannen comes first to look and prices every job himself. Lytchett Matravers is about eleven miles west of our base in Boscombe.
We also cover Lytchett Minster, Upton, Organford and across to Wareham and the edge of Poole, broadly BH16, where Dorset Council is the local authority. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. A customer's verified review on Checkatrade marks us 10 out of 10. We make no charge for the visit or the written quote. Before you book a visit in Lytchett Matravers, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Lytchett Matravers?
Most repairs in Lytchett Matravers need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Lytchett Matravers |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Lytchett Matravers. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Lytchett Matravers, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Lytchett Matravers. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Lytchett Matravers. |
Questions
Questions about gutter cleaning in Lytchett Matravers
Why does our gutter always overflow in the same place?
Because that is where the outlet is. Debris travels along a run until it meets the hole and stops, so water backs up and comes over the front edge at that corner. Clearing the length without clearing the outlet and the downpipe under it fixes nothing.
Will clearing fix a gutter that sags between brackets?
No, clearing takes the weight out, but the dip stays and fills again. If the plastic is sound the run can be re-hung, which is gutter repair, priced apart from the clear, and you see the photograph first.
Do you need to get on the roof to clear our gutters?
No, gutter work is done from the outside, off a ladder, a tower or a reach pole depending on the property, and nobody needs to walk on your tiles. Standing on a roof to reach a gutter is how tiles get broken.
What do you do with everything that comes out?
It goes into a bucket and into the van. Nothing is dropped into the borders and nothing is washed down the outlet, which only moves the blockage into the drain. The ground under the run is sheeted where there is planting.
How long does a gutter clean take on an average house here?
Most detached and semi-detached properties in Lytchett Matravers are a morning, including running water through every downpipe and looking at the joints. A bungalow with a conservatory, or a hedge tight against one elevation, takes longer, because access slows it down rather than the gutter.
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Get the runs cleared and the joints checked together
We come out, clear every run and outlet, prove it with water and send a written itemised quote for anything that needs repairing. Free.