Gutter cleaning in Redlynch

The run is cleared first. Leaf, needle, moss off the tiles and the grit that comes with it settle into one wet sludge along the bottom of a run. A scoop lifts it out in a piece, into a bucket and then the van, or we take it off a reach pole with a vacuum head where a ladder cannot be footed. Jetting it along the gutter only relocates it to the outlet, where it packs hard.

Proving it. Each length is flushed and each downpipe has water run through it while somebody watches the shoe. If nothing arrives, the pipe is backing up below the eaves and a rod or a camera settles where. On older Redlynch properties the pipe often steps back to the wall at a swan neck, and that bend is where a blockage sits.

Outlets, hoppers and shoes. A gutter blocks at its outlets rather than along its length. Where an upper roof or an outshut discharges into a lower run there is usually a hopper, and a hopper packs silently then overflows down the back of the pipe. A shoe full of silt puts the water straight back against the foot of the wall, which on solid brickwork is the worst place it can go.

Valleys and outshuts. A lot of the older housing in Redlynch has been added to, and every join between two pitches makes a valley. A valley gutter or a box gutter collects off both slopes, silts faster than the eaves and has nowhere to overflow except into the roof, so it wants a tower under you, not a ladder over the edge.

The repairs. A union that has lost its seal drips in the same place whenever it rains, and a new seal or a refixed bracket is done on the visit. A length that sags, or one hung so it falls away from the outlet, has to be re-hung, and that is gutter repair in Redlynch, quoted apart from the clear.

What it does, and how often. Water over the edge takes the soffits and fascias first, then shows as a green stripe on render, a dark band on brickwork and damp or staining on the inside face. Frequency follows the cover overhead. An annual clear late in autumn after the leaves are down does most houses in Redlynch, with a second seasonal look in spring where a valley or heavy planting is involved.

We do not charge by the metre. A long run along an open bungalow eaves can be quick, and the same length under an oak, behind a hedge, is not.

How high we have to go. Gutters at head height on a bungalow are the easy end. A gutter over a porch or conservatory roof, or a valley gutter tucked between two pitches, needs a tower or a platform, and the work at height rules decide which. That goes on the quote as its own item.

How long since it was last done. One autumn's leaves come out in handfuls. Moss that has washed off old clay tiles for years sets like wet felt, and silt packs heavy at the bottom of a long run. Houses on the forest side of Redlynch, or under big trees, tend to fill quicker. Outlets are where it all jams, so a house with several of them takes longer than its length suggests.

Whether anything is broken. A dripping union, a downpipe choked at the shoe or a sagging length of plastic between brackets is a repair, and it is priced as one.

The wall below. On the solid walls of the older cottages, an overflow left for a winter has already soaked in, so we check the brick or flint under each outlet too.

When comparing, ask if the downpipes will be flushed or only the gutter scooped, whether hoppers and outlets are checked, and where the waste goes.

Plenty of the older housing in Redlynch predates 1919, which means solid walls, not cavity ones. That single fact changes how urgent a gutter is. A modern cavity wall can take a certain amount of water on its outer face and shrug it off, because the cavity behind stops the wet from bridging to the inside.

A solid wall has no such thing. It relies on the outer face being wetted only briefly and then drying out, and it copes perfectly well with ordinary weather for two hundred years, right up until something keeps one strip of it permanently wet.

An overflowing gutter is exactly that something. It puts a narrow band of water down the same brickwork every time it rains, the wall never gets a chance to dry, and the damp arrives on the inside face in the same position. People then spend money on the inside of the wall, which does nothing, because the cause is fifteen feet up. Approved Document C sets out what a wall is expected to do about ground and rain water, and the practical version is simple: fix the gutter first, let the wall dry through a summer, then look again. It is also why we check where each downpipe discharges, because a shoe standing in a puddle at the foot of an old wall does the same damage from below.

We come up from Boscombe for gutter work in Redlynch, 18.2 miles from our base, and cover Woodfalls, Morgan's Vale, Lover and Downton too. Wiltshire Council is the local authority for all of these.

You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can check on Companies House. Thomas Hannen runs it, and he is the person who looks at your gutters and gives you the price. Our Checkatrade page carries a verified customer's score of 10 out of 10. We charge nothing for the visit or for the written quote, which lists every item. Before you book a visit in Redlynch, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Redlynch 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.