Verwood gutter cleaning, from the lawn up
On a bungalow you can see most faults from the lawn. Here is what to look for, and what we do about each of them.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Verwood is bungalow country, and the useful side effect is that you can read your own gutters from the lawn. On a single storey roof most faults show themselves from the ground, which means you can ring us knowing what is wrong.
Most calls from the town start with one of three sights: water arcing over the front edge in a shower, a wet patch on the wall directly under one joint, or a length of gutter that no longer sits level against the fascia.
The site visit is free and the survey covers every run, the garage and anything at the back. We clear by hand into a bucket or lift it on a vacuum, dig out each outlet and shoe, then run water through every downpipe so you can see it clear. Nothing is flushed into the drain, everything leaves with us, and the written itemised quote keeps clearing and repair apart.
The work
Bungalow runs, conservatories and garage gutters
Clearing. A 1980s bungalow puts a lot of eaves and verge around a modest floor plan, so there is more gutter here per household than on almost anything else we work on. What fills it is leaf off the boundary planting, pine and birch debris off the heathland edge, and moss washed down off the tiles. Loose material is scooped out, packed moss and sludge are dug out, and the run is cleaned right down so the fall works again rather than skimmed to look tidy.
Outlets, downpipes and gullies. The blockage is nearly always at the outlet rather than along the run, which is why the overflow shows at the same corner every time. Outlets are dug out by hand, the downpipe is run through from the top and rodded from the shoe where water is backing up, and the gully at the bottom is lifted and cleared so the pipe is not simply discharging into a blockage.
The other roofs. Almost every plot in the town has picked up a conservatory, a porch, a detached garage or a summerhouse, and each of those has its own short run and outlet. A conservatory gutter sitting below the main eaves catches everything that comes off the tiles above it and blocks first. Where a flat roofed extension meets the main roof there is usually a box gutter or a short valley gutter that cannot be seen from the ground, and a camera on a reach pole is how you get to look at one.
Repairs, which are cheap at this height. The access is already there, so a fault found on the day is usually fixed on the day. A bracket that has let go gets refixed. A length sagging so water stands in the dip gets a realign and a re-hang to its fall. A union whose seal has hardened and started to drip gets a new seal or is replaced, and a section gone brittle in the sun is replaced rather than nursed along.
What it does to the wall. On a low building the overflow lands close to the house rather than clear of it, so the brickwork and render underneath stay wet all winter and go green. Water behind the gutter takes the fascia and travels along the soffit. Soft fascias, damp staining and anything reaching a ceiling get photographed and reported.
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 and repairing gutters is maintenance: no planning application, and nothing for building control to sign off. There is no conservation area over the housing in the town and only a handful of listed entries, so on the great majority of properties here you can simply have the work done. On one of those few, a change of material rather than a repair would need listed building consent.
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 detached bungalow with a conservatory and a garage, a chalet bungalow with a dormer over the front door, and a two storey house on one of the later estates are three different afternoons, and only the last of them is ever likely to want a scaffold. 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. Tell us which corner it comes over, because on a bungalow that usually names the outlet before anybody has put a ladder up. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
What you can check yourself from the lawn
Four in ten homes here are bungalows, which gives you something most homeowners do not have: a clear view of your own rainwater goods without leaving the ground. Five minutes in the next heavy shower tells you more than any inspection. Watch where the water comes over the front edge, because that corner is almost always the outlet. Look along the run against the line of the fascia, because a length sagging in the middle is obvious once you know to look. Watch each downpipe: one that is silent in a downpour is full, not empty. And a wet stripe directly under a joint rather than under the whole run is a union leaking rather than a gutter overflowing.
Any one of those tells you which job you are booking, and it is worth saying on the phone. Overflow at a corner is a clearing job. A puddle standing in the middle of a run is a bracket and a re-hang. A drip under one joint is a seal. A silent downpipe usually means the outlet, the shoe or the gully. None of that stops us checking the lot when we get there, but it means the quote you get back is describing the fault you actually have rather than a general clean, and you can tell straight away whether anyone else's quote is doing the same.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Verwood, Three Legged Cross, West Moors, Alderholt, Cranborne and across to Ringwood, broadly BH31, 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
Verwood questions we get asked
Water only comes over one corner of our gutter. What does that mean?
That corner has the outlet. Debris travels along the fall until it meets the hole and stops, so the rest of the run can be nearly clear while one corner takes all the water. It is the outlet and the downpipe below it that have to be dug out, not just the gutter.
There is a wet stripe on the wall under one joint. Is that a blockage?
Probably not. A stain directly under a single joint rather than under the whole run is a union whose seal has hardened, and it drips whether the gutter is clear or not. It takes a new seal or a new union, and how long that takes is minutes rather than hours while the access is up.
Our downpipe makes no noise when it rains hard. Is that good?
No, the opposite. A downpipe you cannot hear in a downpour is full rather than empty, which usually means the outlet, the shoe or the gully is packed. It is worth mentioning when you ring, because it points at the ground rather than the roof.
Does the conservatory gutter need doing at the same time?
Almost always. A conservatory roof sits below the main eaves, so it catches everything washing off the tiles above and blocks well before the house gutter does. It is on the quote as its own line, along with the garage and anything else on the plot.
What is a sensible clearing routine for a bungalow?
An annual clear in autumn, after the leaves are down, suits most of the town. Where a run sits under conifer or holly a second seasonal look in spring is worth having. Frequency matters less than whether the outlets are properly dug out rather than the gutter skimmed.
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Tell us what you can see, and we will price the fault
Thomas comes out, checks every run, outlet and downpipe, proves them with water and sends a written itemised quote line by line. Free.