Gutter cleaning in Wool

The clear. Debris out by hand into a bucket where there is safe standing beside it, with a scoop for the silt and sludge that packs into the bottom of a long run. Where a ladder will not sit properly, it comes out on a gutter vacuum with a camera on the reach pole so you can see inside the run. It is bagged and leaves with us. Then each downpipe is flushed and the length proved with water until it goes at the shoe.

Levels and brackets. With the gutter empty the real state of it shows. We go along the brackets, check each one is still biting sound timber, look at every union for a seal that has hardened, and sight the fall from the far end. A run that stands water in the middle is a sagging run, and re-hanging it to a proper fall costs a fraction of a new one.

Downpipes, gullies and hoppers. A downpipe usually blocks at a bend or right at the shoe where it turns into the gully. Some of the older village properties still have a hopper head taking two runs, and those choke at the spigot. We rod and flush from the top, then check that the gully below is actually taking it, because clearing a pipe into a blocked gully only moves the puddle.

Valleys. Where two pitches meet, the valley gutter takes everything both slopes shed to one point, and a blocked one backs up under the tiles instead of spilling over an edge. That is the version that shows as damp on a ceiling rather than a stain on the brickwork. They get cleared by hand and looked over while the access is there.

What we would talk you out of. Replacing a whole run because two joints drip. A new union seal, a refixed bracket and a realigned length answer most of it. We tell you plainly when a plastic run really has gone brittle and is past repair, and then we price the replacement as its own line rather than folding it into a cleaning price.

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 1970s semi on one of the estates, an older cottage in the village centre and a detached bungalow on a corner plot are three different jobs before anybody opens 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.

Fifty five per cent of the housing in Wool went up between 1945 and 1982, and the busiest years were the 1970s and the very early 1980s. That matters for gutters more than it does for most trades, because it means whole streets were fitted with the same plastic rainwater goods, by the same methods, within a few years of each other. Ultraviolet, frost and four decades of thermal movement work on all of it at the same rate.

So the failures arrive together. Brackets let go, a length sags between two of them, a union seal goes hard and starts to drip, and the plastic itself gets chalky and brittle enough that a clip snaps when you flex it. If a neighbour has had theirs done, yours is probably close behind. The useful part is that this is mostly not a replacement job. A run that is only out of level can be re-hung, a bracket can be refixed into sound timber, and a seal is a few pounds and ten minutes. What we will not do is put new brackets into a fascia that has gone soft under a leaking joint, because that fails again in a year. If the fascia and soffit have been wet a long time, that gets said on the quote rather than discovered afterwards.

We cover Wool, Bovington, East Burton, Winfrith Newburgh and the Purbeck villages, broadly 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.