Gutter cleaning around Merritown and Hurn

We work down the system in order, because that is the only way to find out which part has failed.

The run. Leaves, moss, roofing grit and silt, scooped out by hand from a ladder, or lifted with a vacuum on a reach pole where the ground is too soft to foot one. It comes out into a bag and goes with us. On an exposed site like this a lot of what we find is not from the property at all: twigs, heath litter and dust blown in on a south westerly and packed hard at the stop ends.

The outlets and the downpipes. Each outlet is cleared, each pipe has water run through it while you watch, and a pipe that will not take it is rodded or looked at with a camera. Where a hopper serves more than one run it gets opened up too, because everything upstream ends there.

Where the water goes next. This is the part most gutter cleans skip. A shoe discharging onto a path, a gully choked with leaf mould, a soakaway that has silted and no longer takes anything, a boundary ditch grown over: any of them backs the system up from the bottom, and the symptom shows at the top as an overflowing gutter. " + ADH + " sets out what rainwater is supposed to discharge into. We check what we can reach and tell you plainly what we cannot.

Outbuildings. Stables, workshops, garages and the odd barn have more roof between them than the house does, and their gutters are the last thing anybody looks at. A run over a stable door that overflows all winter soaks the brickwork below it, leaves green staining and damp across the render, and rots the fascias and soffit behind. By then the sludge in the gutter is the least of it.

Repairs. Sagging between brackets, a union that has lost its seal, a length blown out of fall, a bracket into rotten timber. Photographed, priced, and only done once you have said yes. On long low buildings we refix, realign and re-hang rather than replace wherever the run itself is sound.

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 farmhouse with a ditch on the boundary, a bungalow on a soft verge and a long stable range are three different jobs before anything is opened up. 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 a street, rainwater leaves the downpipe and goes into a public surface water sewer, and that is the end of it. Around here it usually does not. It goes to a soakaway in the garden, or a boundary ditch, or a watercourse, and the ground it has to soak into is a high surface water flood risk with the Moors river under a kilometre away. You can look up your own address on " + FLOOD + ".

The practical effect is that the bottom of your rainwater system needs as much attention as the top, and hardly anybody gives it any. A soakaway silts up over years and then simply stops taking water, at which point the downpipe backs up and the gutter above it overflows even though the run is clean. A ditch that has not been cleared grows in and does the same. So before you spend money on clearing a gutter twice, check where the water is going: lift the gully grate, watch what happens at the shoe in heavy rain, and walk the boundary ditch. We do the first two as part of the visit and will tell you honestly when the answer is a drainage job rather than a gutter one. On frequency, an open site like this is not a twice a year job: clear it in late autumn after the leaves are down, then look again in spring at the outlets alone.

We cover Merritown, Hurn, Parley Cross, Avon and out towards Christchurch, broadly BH23, under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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.