Ringwood gutters, and what the access costs

Three storeys, and no room for a ladder. Nearly one home in five in the town predates 1900, and the older frontages run straight to the pavement with nothing to stand on.

A ladder cannot be footed safely on a footway with traffic beside it, so those runs come off a tower, and where the tower stands on the highway that needs a licence from the highway authority arranged in advance. We tell you which of those applies before you book, not on the morning.

The back is often worse than the front. Ringwood town centre properties usually have a yard, an outshut or a rear extension, and the rainwater there gets less attention than the street elevation because nobody sees it. That is where we find valley gutters silted solid, box gutters behind a parapet, and hopper heads that have not been emptied in years. Those flood inwards, so the first sign is a damp ceiling rather than a stain on the front of the building. Where the angle is awkward a camera on a reach pole shows you what is there.

Clearing, whatever is in it. Leaf off Ringwood's mature limes and planes, moss washed off old tile and slate, and years of silt in a run nobody could reach. Loose material is scooped out, packed moss and sludge are dug out, and nothing is flushed down the outlet to become a drain job. An annual clear in autumn, after the leaves are down, suits most properties here, with a second seasonal look in spring where a run sits under a lime.

Cast iron on the older frontages. A good deal of the rainwater goods in the old part of town is cast iron with a hopper at first floor level. It is emptied by hand and never jetted, the bolt through each joint gets checked, and the brackets get looked at, because cast iron gives way at its fixings. On the newer estates the plastic faults are the usual ones: a bracket that has let go, a length sagging so water stands in the dip, a union whose seal has hardened and drips. A new union seal is part of the visit, and a sagging length that needs re-hanging is gutter repair in Ringwood, priced separately.

What it is costing the building. On a Ringwood town centre wall the water has nowhere to go but into the brickwork or render, so it stays wet all winter and goes green. Water behind a gutter takes the fascia and runs along the soffit. Soft fascias and damp staining are photographed and reported whether or not they were why you rang.

We price the run you have, not a rate per metre, because a clear gutter on a bungalow and a packed valley on a town centre terrace are hours apart.

Reach. A bungalow gutter can be cleared from a ladder or with a pole from the ground. A three storey building on the High Street wants a tower, and on the footway that means a licence too. Blocks of flats, and the town has a lot of them, often have long runs high up with parked cars underneath. The work at height rules make access its own line.

What has collected. Leaves lift out quickly. Moss that has washed off concrete tiles packs into a heavy mat, and silt left for years sets like clay. Most of it gathers at the outlets, so the number of outlets affects the time more than the length.

Clean or repair. Once the water runs again, a dripping joint, a cracked hopper or a gutter sagging between brackets may show. None of that is cleaning, and it is priced separately with a photograph.

Below ground. If a downpipe is blocked where it enters the drain, rodding it is a different job from clearing the gutter above.

Ask anyone else quoting whether the downpipes are flushed and tested or just the gutter scooped out, whether hoppers and outlets are checked, and who takes the waste away.

Our base in Boscombe is 8 miles from Ringwood. We clear gutters across the town, Poulner and Hightown, Hangersley, Burley, Verwood and up to Fordingbridge. The council for this part of BH24 is New Forest District Council.

You will be dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which is on the public register. Thomas Hannen runs it and does the pricing visit himself. Checkatrade shows a verified customer's score of 10 out of 10. We charge nothing to come and look or to put the itemised quote in writing. Before you book a visit in Ringwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ringwood 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.