Gutter cleaning in West Moors
Low roofs, long runs and more outlets than most houses. Cleared by hand off a ladder, with every downpipe flushed and proved before we leave.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On a single storey house the whole gutter run is within reach of a ladder, so clearing it is a short job. The catch is that a bungalow carries far more gutter per household than a two storey house does.
The call usually comes after a wet week. Water sheeting off the eaves onto the path by the back door, a wet stripe on the brickwork under one downpipe, or a nest that has sat in the corner since spring and has finally stopped the outlet.
Because so much of this village is single storey, the work is straightforward and the access is cheap. What people underestimate is the length. A bungalow spreads a house worth of floor area across one storey, which means a long perimeter, more corners and more outlets than the neighbours in a two storey semi will ever have. We survey and measure the run on the free site visit, clear it by hand, flush every downpipe, and price any repair separately so you can see it.
The work
Long low runs, and everything that lands in them
Working along the run, from the tiles down to the gully.
What comes off the roof. Moss growing in the laps of a concrete tile washes down every time it rains and settles in the gutter as a wet sludge. Add leaf litter, seed and the grit an old tile sheds, and a run silts up from the top surface down rather than filling from a single blockage. That is why a gutter can look clear from the ground and still be half full, and why it is scooped out rather than hosed through.
Corners, and the outlets. A long low roof usually means several external corners, and a corner slows the water and catches the debris. The outlets sit at the ends of the longest legs and take the load from all of it. Each one is cleared by hand, then water is run through and watched at the shoe. If it is backing up, the downpipe is rodded and flushed rather than left as somebody else's problem.
Nests, and what to do about them. Sparrows and starlings like the gap behind a gutter and under a tile at the eaves. A nest in the run is a hard blockage, not silt, and there is a season when it should be left alone. We will tell you honestly which you are looking at.
Falls, sagging and re-hanging. Long runs sag. Plastic gutter needs a bracket about every metre, and on a run this length a couple of missing or loose brackets show up as a dip you can see from the garden. Water stands in the dip, silt settles, and it blocks again by spring. We realign and refix the brackets to a line rather than replace a run that is basically sound.
Joints, unions and leaks. The seal inside a plastic union hardens and shrinks with age. It shows as a drip carrying on after the rain has stopped, and staining on the render or brickwork below. Changing the union is minutes. Leaving it soaks the wall, brings damp through, and eventually takes the soffit and fascias with it.
Getting to it. Most of this is ladder work with a stand-off, so nothing rests on the gutter. Over a conservatory, or where the ground will not take a ladder foot, we use a vacuum on a reach pole with a camera on the head so you can see inside the run for 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.
None of this needs permission. Clearing and repairing rainwater goods is maintenance, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control. The one exception is a listed building, where the gutters are part of the protected fabric and a change of material needs listed building consent. There is a single listed entry in the parish and no conservation area, so for almost everybody here the choice of gutter 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 detached bungalow with a hipped roof and four downpipes, a chalet with a dormer at the front, and a semi with a flat roofed extension along the back are three different jobs before anybody looks in the gutter. 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 elevation it is coming over, because on a low roof the water lands close to the wall and gets into the brickwork quickly. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A bungalow has more gutter than a house, and all of it is reachable
Just over half the homes here are bungalows, which is unusually high and it changes the shape of a gutter job in two opposite directions at once.
The good news is access. Nearly every run is inside comfortable ladder height, so there is no tower to hire, no scaffold and no working at height premium buried in the price. That is the single biggest saving available on this kind of work, and it is the reason a bungalow clear costs less than the same length of gutter on a two storey house.
The other side is length. Spread the same floor area over one storey and you roughly double the roof, which means roughly double the perimeter of gutter, more corners, and often four downpipes where a semi has two. So do not judge the job by the size of the house. Judge it by how far you would have to walk to get round it. In practice a bungalow benefits more than most from an annual autumn clear, and a quote should tell you the metres and the number of outlets rather than a figure for the address.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover West Moors, Ferndown, Three Legged Cross, Verwood and St Leonards, broadly BH22 and BH24, 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
West Moors questions we get asked
Is a bungalow cheaper to have done than a two storey house?
For the same length of gutter, yes, because there is no tower or scaffold in it. The saving is on access rather than labour. What surprises people is how long a bungalow run actually is, so the two effects partly cancel out. On seasonal frequency, once a year is right for most.
There is a nest in the gutter. Can you take it out?
Not while it is in use. Nesting birds are protected, so if there are eggs or young we leave that section, clear the rest, and come back once it is empty. Out of season it lifts straight out. We tell you which you have rather than work round it.
It always spills at the same external angle. What causes that?
Because a corner slows the water and everything that floats settles there. Nine times in ten there is also a dip just before it, from a loose bracket. Clearing helps for a season. Realigning the brackets so the fall is continuous is what stops it.
Do you take the debris away or leave it in the garden?
It leaves with us. Wet moss out of a gutter is heavy, it stains a patio and it kills grass if you tip it on a lawn. It goes into bags on the day, into the van, and the ground under the ladder gets swept before we go.
Our downpipe just ends above a drain and splashes everywhere. Is that normal?
Common, and worth fixing. A shoe broken off, or a pipe cut short above a gully, throws water at the wall every time it rains, which is how a clean stretch of brickwork goes green. A new shoe is a small item and we price it on the same visit.
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Book the run in before the leaves come down
Thomas measures the run, counts the outlets and sends a written itemised quote. The visit and the quote are free.