Gutter cleaning in Merley, every run on the property

Additions are where this goes wrong, so we work round the whole building, not just along the front of it.

The main runs. Leaves, moss off the tiles, roofing grit and the silt and sludge they turn into, scooped out by hand from a ladder and bagged. Where planting or a conservatory roof stops a ladder going in, the run comes out with a vacuum on a reach pole from the ground. Every outlet is cleared and every downpipe flushed through with water while you watch.

The conservatory run. This is the one that matters most and gets looked at least. A conservatory gutter is short, shallow and often sits under the main roof, so it takes everything the tiles above shed and fills faster than anything else on a Merley property. When it overflows the water lands on the frame, the sill and the base wall rather than on a garden, and a conservatory frame that stays wet all winter is an expensive thing to put right.

Garages, porches and bays. Short low runs with a single outlet each. An overflow there goes into brickwork just above the damp proof course, or straight down a door frame, and it shows inside as damp on a wall, not as a stain on a ceiling. Cleared with everything else, since the cost of adding them to a visit is nothing next to the cost of a second call out.

The junctions between old and new. Where an extension roof meets a Merley house you often get a valley gutter or a short box gutter behind a parapet, and both concentrate the water off two slopes into one narrow channel. They block quietly, and when they do the water goes under the covering instead of over a front edge, so the first sign is a stain on a ceiling.

Repairs while we are there. Sagging between brackets, a union whose seal has gone, a length knocked out of fall, a bracket screwed into a soft fascia. Photographed, with a camera down any pipe that will not run, and priced. A seal or a bracket is a quick fix, and re-hanging or replacing a run is gutter repair in Merley, done only once you have said yes. Left alone, a run that keeps backing up leaves green staining down the render, damp on the inside face, and soft fascias and soffit behind it.

We don't charge by the metre of gutter, because a metre under an oak and a metre on an open gable take very different times.

What overhangs the roof. A Merley garden with trees over the house fills a gutter far faster than an open plot. Leaf litter, twigs and moss washed off the tiles pack into a wet mat at the outlets. Light debris lifts out quickly; silt that has sat all winter has to be dug out.

Height and obstacles. A bungalow is ladder or pole work. A two storey run over a conservatory or a flat roofed garage needs a tower placed with care, and the work at height rules decide which. That is why access is on the quote as its own line.

Outlets and downpipes. The number of outlets matters more than the length, because that is where it blocks. Rodding a downpipe packed solid at the shoe takes longer than clearing the gutter above it.

Clean or repair. A joint that drips once water runs again, a bracket that has let a length sag, a leaking hopper: that is repair, and we price it separately, not folded in.

Where the water ends up. On Merley's shrink-swell clay, a blocked gully that lets roof water soak in beside the wall is a structural worry as well as a damp one.

Ask any other quote whether the downpipes are rodded or only the gutters scooped out, whether the gullies are checked, and who takes the waste away.

Roughly half the homes in Merley are detached and most of them date from the seventies and early eighties, which is exactly the stock that has had a conservatory, a garage or a rear extension added since. Every addition brings a gutter with it, and those runs have problems of their own.

They are short, so a small amount of debris fills a big share of them. They are usually below a main roof slope, so they catch everything the tiles above shed. And they are the ones people forget to include when they book a clean.

The practical advice is to book the property, not just the house. When you ring anybody for a price, count the runs out loud: front, back, garage, porch, conservatory, bay. Ask for them itemised, because a quote for the house only is not cheaper, it is smaller. And pay particular attention to anything that discharges near a frame or a threshold: an overflow onto grass is a nuisance, while an overflow onto a conservatory frame, a door sill or brickwork near the damp proof course does real damage over a winter. We walk the whole building on the visit and list every run we find, including the ones you had forgotten were there. On frequency, most houses in Merley want the main clear in late autumn after the leaves are down, with a spring look at the conservatory run alone, which is a seasonal job, not an annual one for the whole property.

From our base in Boscombe it is 6.6 miles to Merley. We clear gutters here, in Oakley, Bearwood, Canford Magna and Broadstone, across BH21, BH18 and BH11 and all under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council. The work is done by Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Merley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

The business belongs to Thomas Hannen, and he prices each job himself after a look at your outlets and downpipes. On Checkatrade, a verified customer rated us 10 out of 10. Coming out to see it is free, and the written, itemised quote costs you nothing either.

Most repairs in Merley 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.