Gutter cleaning in Woodlands
Runs under oak and birch cleared by hand, outlets opened and downpipes proved, where cutting the tree back is not the simple option.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Cut the branches back. That is what everyone says first, and here it falls over at once, because the tree is usually not yours and often not free to touch anyway. So the gutter becomes the part you can actually control.
Four calls, over and over. Water sheeting off the front edge in every shower. A downpipe gone silent, with a wet stripe widening on the wall beneath it. A run emptied last November and solid again by the following autumn. A soffit turned spongy under a joint nobody noticed dripping.
None of those want a different method, only a different interval. Debris lifts out dry and by hand. Outlets get opened rather than poked at. Water follows, down every pipe, with a second pair of eyes at the shoe. Thomas walks the whole plot on the free site visit, outbuildings included, and the written itemised quote keeps clearing, repair and access on lines of their own.
The work
Clearing runs that fill faster than most
October to December, the leaf itself. Oak and birch do not finish in a week. They shed across two months, so a run emptied too early is packed again by Christmas. Out it comes dry and by hand, a bucket at a time and then the van, or from a reach pole carrying a vacuum head where no ladder can be footed.
What flushing does instead. Nothing good. Push the sludge along a run and it travels exactly as far as the outlet, where it sets harder than it lay before. Wet leaf held through a winter turns to silt as well, and silt gets dug out of the bottom of a gutter rather than scooped off the top.
April to June, catkin, bud scale and seed. Small, light, endless. None of it blocks a run by itself. All of it bridges an outlet, which is why a spring visit here is not fussiness. Moss keeps no season at all: it washes off the tiles in any wet week and mats along the back edge.
Three places it always stops. At the outlet first, since a run blocks at its ends and not along its middle. Then the hopper, wherever a porch or an upper roof empties into a lower run: a full one announces nothing, it simply starts sending water down behind the pipe and onto the wall. Then the shoe, silted, keeping the foot of the brickwork wet.
Proving the downpipe rather than assuming it. Each length gets flushed. Each pipe takes water while somebody stands below waiting for it to appear. Nothing arriving means the pipe is backing up beneath the eaves, and a rod or a camera settles where. Under cover this heavy the pipe is as likely to be the trouble as the gutter.
Valleys keep no calendar. Where two pitches meet, a valley gutter or a box gutter takes the fall off both slopes at once and has nowhere to overflow except into the roof. Beneath a canopy it silts faster than anything at the eaves, so it is emptied by hand and left dry, off a tower. Garages, stores and stables join the same list.
Repairs, and what leaving them costs. Seals give out at the unions, and afterwards the same spot drips through every shower. Brackets let a length droop until it holds standing water and greens inside. A fall pointing away from the outlet overflows however clean the run is. So we refix a bracket, replace a union, re-hang or realign a length. Ignored, all of it takes the soffits and fascias first, then shows as a green stripe down render, a dark band on brickwork, damp at the head of a wall and staining on a ceiling. One annual clear late in autumn is the floor here rather than the answer; a second seasonal visit in spring, after the leaves and for the catkins, seed and moss, is the frequency that holds.
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 gutters needs no permission and nothing from building control. Two things around it can. This is a National Park with a conservation area covering the settlement, so a change of rainwater goods on a visible elevation is a planning question rather than upkeep, and the National Park sets out what is designated. The trees themselves are the other one, which is worth reading below before anybody books a tree surgeon.
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 bungalow with the run at eaves height, a chalet with a dormer sitting over the gutter, and a two storey house with a valley behind it are three different set ups, and only the last is likely to want a tower rather than a ladder. 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. On low ground near the stream the foot of a wall stays damp through the winter anyway, so an overflow shows here sooner than it would on drier ground. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Cutting the branches back is not the simple answer here
Two things block the obvious fix. Ownership is the first. Most of the trees feeding these runs do not stand on the property at all: they sit on a neighbour boundary, on a verge, or on land held as part of the Forest. Common law lets you take a branch back as far as your own line and no further, and the cuttings stay the property of whoever owns the tree. That is the entire extent of the right people believe they have.
Protection is the second, and it bites harder. A tree inside a conservation area is protected in its own right, so work on it needs written notice to the planning authority first, and a preservation order needs formal consent on top. Inside a National Park none of this is a formality: an application to reduce a mature oak because it keeps filling a gutter is refused more often than granted. Which leaves the rainwater. Two clears a year rather than one, outlets and downpipes proved every visit, a wider outlet where a run takes more than it was built to take, and a look at whatever has already rotted.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Woodlands, Ashurst, Netley Marsh, Bartley and the lanes north of the A336, broadly SO40, under the New Forest National Park Authority. 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
Woodlands questions we get asked
Can we just cut the branches back over our roof?
As far as your own boundary, yes, provided nothing protects the tree. Sitting in a conservation area, it needs written notice to the planning authority before a saw touches it, and a preservation order needs consent. Check first. Getting this wrong is an offence, and the cuttings still belong to the owner.
The tree is next door's. Whose problem is the gutter?
Yours. Nobody next door is obliged to stop a tree shedding, and whatever lands in your gutter counts as your own ordinary maintenance. A friendly word occasionally shifts something. Two booked clears a year shift rather more.
Is once a year enough under this much cover?
Rarely, under a canopy like this. A clear in late autumn handles the fall itself, then catkins, seed and moss keep coming, so a lighter spring visit stops the outlets entering the wet season part loaded. We will say which of your runs needs it.
Would a larger outlet and downpipe help?
Where a run takes more water than it was ever sized for, yes. A wider throat leaves debris less to bridge across. That counts as a repair and not a clean, so it sits on its own line, and we raise it only where the gutter itself is sound.
Do you clear the outbuildings and stables too?
Yes, and they are usually in worse shape than the house. Short runs, shallow footings, nobody ever looking up at them. A blockage there sends water down a wall with very little underneath it. Each building is quoted separately, so the choice stays yours.
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Get the runs on a rhythm that suits the canopy
Thomas comes out, looks at every run on the plot, works out how often yours really needs doing and sends a written itemised quote. Free.