Gutter cleaning in Swanage
Older terraces carry their rainwater in cast iron and in gutters you cannot see from the street. We clear both, and price the access openly.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On a three storey Victorian terrace the gutter is thirty feet up, it is cast iron, and half of it drains into a box gutter you cannot see from the street. That is why the access matters more here than the clearing does.
The town gives us three different kinds of call. An owner of an older terrace watching water sheet past a second floor window. A leaseholder in a converted building who has looked at a damp wall for two winters and cannot get anyone to act. And somebody with a bungalow up the hill who wants the moss out before winter.
Three different answers, so we start by walking the building. The free site visit is a survey of every run, outlet and downpipe, front and back, and the access is shown as its own line on the written itemised quote. We clear by hand, run water through and watch it at the shoe, and photograph anything broken rather than blocked.
The work
Cast iron, hidden gutters and thirty feet of terrace
Roughly three in ten homes in the town predate 1919, which is a lot of older fabric, and older fabric carries its rainwater differently.
Cast iron at eaves level. Still in place on a great many of the older buildings and worth keeping when it is sound. It rusts from the inside and from the back where nobody looks, and the bolted joints go before the metal does. Cleared out, wire brushed and coated, a cast iron run lasts decades. Where a length has rusted through we replace that length in a matching profile rather than strip an elevation. It is heavy, so the brackets and the timber behind are checked too.
Box and parapet gutters. Behind a parapet or between two roof slopes the water runs in a lead-lined channel with nowhere to go but the outlet. A box gutter or a valley gutter fills faster than an eaves run, and when it blocks it does not spill over a front edge. It backs up under the slates and comes through a ceiling. Cleared by hand, with nobody standing on the lead, and it is the first thing we look at on an older building.
Hoppers and long downpipes. Older terraces collect first floor and rear runs into a hopper head and drop them down one pipe, often on a shared wall. A hopper catches everything. Every downpipe is run through and watched at the bottom, and anything backing up is rodded and flushed.
The ordinary clearing. Leaf, seed, moss off the slates and salt-laden grit, all scooped out by hand as a wet sludge and bagged. Nothing is hosed along a run into somebody else's outlet, and nothing is left to run down a wall and leave green staining on the render below.
Repairs on plastic runs. On the post-war housing it is the same three faults as everywhere: a hardened union seal that drips, a bracket that has let go leaving a sagging dip, and an outlet packed with sludge. We refix, realign and re-hang to a fall rather than replace a sound run, and rotten soffit and fascias are photographed rather than covered over.
Access, which is the real variable. A bungalow is ladder work with a stand-off. A three storey terrace is a tower, and a rear elevation reached only through the house may be a scaffold. A vacuum on a reach pole with a camera head covers much of the middle ground and lets you see inside the run yourself.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, the length of run, the number of outlets and downpipes, any repair, and where the debris goes on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Clearing is maintenance. No planning application, nothing for building control, no consent needed on any building. Replacement is a different question here, because the town carries 129 listed entries, Newton Manor among them, and on a listed building the rainwater goods are protected fabric, so taking cast iron off needs listed building consent first. The town has no conservation area of its own, so on an unlisted house the choice is simply yours.
Cost
What decides the price of a gutter clean
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 three storey terraced house with a rear yard reached through the hall, a converted building with a communal run over four flats, and a post-war bungalow on the hill are three completely different days. 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.
If it is overflowing now
Water coming over the gutter in heavy rain
Ring rather than use the form. Water running down a wall in a downpour soaks the brickwork and finds its way to a ceiling faster than most people expect, so a blocked outlet in a wet week goes to the front of the queue. We clear it, run water through to prove it, and tell you honestly if what you actually have is a broken joint rather than a blockage. If it is a parapet or a valley holding water, ring rather than wait, because that one arrives through a ceiling instead of over an edge. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Three storeys changes the sum, not the job
Almost three in ten homes in the town were built before 1919 and a good many of those are two and three storey terraces, often on a slope, often with a yard behind that you can only reach through the house. Clearing one of those takes no longer than a bungalow. Getting a person safely up to it takes most of the morning.
That is why we price the access as its own line rather than bury it. A tower has to be brought in, built, moved along the frontage and taken down. With no side access it may go through the property in pieces, or become a small scaffold where there is nowhere level to stand. Nearly four in ten homes here are flats, many in converted older buildings, and there the run is communal, so the freeholder or managing agent instructs the work.
Two things follow. Do the whole building in one visit, front, back, the box gutter and every downpipe, because the access is the expensive part and it is already standing. And if you are a leaseholder, start with the agent rather than with quotes. We price to freeholders and residents associations regularly, separating the communal run from anything individual so everyone can see what belongs to whom.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Swanage, Langton Matravers, Corfe Castle, Studland, Harmans Cross and across the isle toward Wareham, broadly BH19 and BH20, under Dorset 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.
Questions
Swanage questions we get asked
Can a three storey terrace be done off a ladder?
Not properly. Clearing a gutter means working with both hands for a sustained period, which is exactly what a ladder is not for at that height. It is tower work, and on a rear elevation with no side access it can be a small scaffold. That is why the access is a separate line on the quote.
Is our old cast iron guttering worth hanging on to?
Keep it if it is sound. Cast iron that is cleared out, brushed and coated outlasts plastic comfortably, and on an older frontage it looks right. If the address is listed the question is settled anyway: the gutters are protected fabric and a change of material needs consent first.
There is no visible guttering on the front. Where does the water go?
It is a gutter hidden behind a parapet or between two roof slopes rather than hung on the eaves. If you cannot see guttering from the street on an older building, you probably have one. They are the ones that matter most, because a blockage there comes through a ceiling rather than over a front edge.
We are leaseholders. Can we just book it?
Usually not. In a converted building the roof, the outside walls and the rainwater goods are normally retained by the freeholder and maintained through the service charge. Ask the agent what is demised to you, then ask that we are invited to price the block. We do that regularly and there is no charge to quote.
How long does an older terraced house take?
Allow a morning, most of it access. The clearing itself, front and back, is an hour. On frequency, an annual visit in autumn after the leaves are down suits most buildings here, and a seasonal second clear in spring only where there are trees over the roof.
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Have the whole building surveyed in one visit
Thomas walks front and back, checks the hidden gutters and sends a written itemised quote with the access on its own line. Free.