Gutter cleaning in Yarmouth
Every run cleared by hand, every downpipe proved with water, and the brackets and joints checked while the gutter is empty.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Rainwater at the harbour end
More roof than you think, and all of it drains somewhere
A bungalow is not a small gutter job. Spread the same floor area over one storey and you get roughly twice the roof, twice the eaves and twice the length of gutter, and every metre of it still has to be cleared.
The upside is that almost none of it is high. The calls we get here are usually about the ordinary things: a run overflowing along its whole length in a downpour, a downpipe that has stopped taking anything at the shoe, or a joint dripping onto a path and leaving a green streak down the wall beneath it.
On the free site visit we work round the whole building rather than the length you rang about. Each run, each outlet, each downpipe and where it finally discharges. The written quote is itemised, so the clearing sits on one line and any repair on another and you can see exactly what you are buying.
On the ground
Long low runs, old town eaves and everything at the shoe
Clearing, and proving it. Out by hand into a bucket wherever we can stand safely beside it, with a scoop for the silt and sludge packed into the bottom of a long run. Where a ladder cannot be footed properly it comes out on a gutter vacuum with a camera on the reach pole. It is bagged and leaves with us. Then every downpipe is flushed and the run proved with water until it goes away at the shoe.
Why the length matters. Over a third of the dwellings here are bungalows, and a long single storey run has more outlets, more unions and more brackets than a two storey house of the same size. More joints means more places to drip and more places for a fall to go wrong. It also means the work is measured in metres of gutter rather than in storeys, which is why we quote per run rather than per property.
The old town. Nearer the harbour the buildings are older and taller and a good many are listed, so the rainwater goods are often cast iron on rise and fall brackets with a hopper head collecting two runs. Those are cleared gently by hand, the hopper cleared at the spigot, and the ironwork looked over for rust lifting under the paint on the back face where nobody sees it.
Moss off the slope. Damp air keeps a tile surface wetter between showers, and a wet tile grows moss. The first heavy rain after a dry spell washes a season of it into the gutter as a mat that will not flush and has to be dug out. If a gutter fills faster than the nearby trees explain, the roof is the source.
Valleys, and what a blockage does. Where two pitches meet there is a valley gutter, and behind a parapet on one or two of the older buildings a lead box gutter. Blocked, those back up under the covering rather than spilling over an edge, and turn up as damp staining on a ceiling. A blocked eaves run is more obvious: water down the render or the brickwork, a green stripe, and a fascia and soffit slowly going soft behind the leak.
Repairs found on the way. A dripping union wanting a new seal, a sagging length that needs re-hanging to level, a bracket to refix into sound timber, a downpipe clip that has corroded through. Most of that is small money. We say plainly when a section is past repair and price replacement separately.
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 rainwater goods needs no permission and nothing about it goes near building control, and Yarmouth has no conservation area of its own to add a planning control over appearance. It does have 48 listed entries, a lot of them in the old streets around the harbour, and on a listed building the gutters, hoppers and brackets count as protected fabric, so replacing them rather than repairing them needs listed building consent first.
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 on an open plot, a two storey house in the old town and a garage or outbuilding with a low eaves are three different jobs before anyone lifts a bucket. 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. Say if the overflow is landing on an old solid wall or against a doorway, because those two do damage fastest. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Twice the roof for the same house, so twice the gutter
Around 36% of the dwellings in Yarmouth are bungalows, which is a high share by any standard, and it changes the shape of a gutter quote in two opposite directions at once. The good news first. Nearly all of a single storey run is reachable from a ladder set on firm ground, so there is no tower to put up and take down and no scaffold to hire. Access is usually the biggest line on a rainwater quote, and on a bungalow it very nearly disappears.
The other direction is the one people are not expecting. A bungalow puts the same house on one floor, so the roof covers roughly twice the footprint and the eaves go round twice as far. That is more gutter, more outlets to pack up and more unions to leak, so the clearing time is often longer than on a house that looks bigger from the road, while the cost of getting to it is far lower. Comparing two quotes, that is the thing to check: whether the price covers the whole run including the extension and the garage, or only the front elevation somebody could see from the drive.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Yarmouth, Norton, Freshwater, Totland and the west of the Island, broadly PO41 and PO40, under Isle of Wight 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
Yarmouth questions we get asked
Do bungalow gutters need doing as often?
Just as often, and there is more of it. A single storey roof sheds the same leaf and moss as any other, and the run is longer. An annual clear in late autumn is the baseline, and the sensible frequency is twice, with a spring visit, where anything overhangs the roof.
Will you do the garage and the conservatory as well?
Yes, and please ask for them on the quote. A conservatory gutter is usually the shallowest run on the property and it blocks first, and a garage run is often the one dumping water straight against the house wall next to it.
Our house is in the old town and the gutters are cast iron. Can you work on those?
Yes. They are cleared by hand rather than by machine, the hopper is cleared at the spigot, and we look at the back face of the ironwork where the rust starts. Repair and repaint beats replacement on cast iron nearly every time, and on a listed building it is also the route that avoids a consent.
How long does a full circuit of a Yarmouth property take?
A straightforward bungalow is a morning. A long run with a conservatory, a garage and several outlets can be most of a day. We put the time on the quote rather than leaving you with a window, and if it turns out bigger than it looked you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Can you clear a gutter from the ground?
A lot of it, yes, on the vacuum and reach pole, and it is the safest option on soft ground or above a border. What it cannot do is put hands on a bracket or a union, so anything the survey turns into a repair still wants a ladder or a tower.
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Get every run on the property cleared, not just the front
Thomas comes out, measures the runs, checks the outlets and downpipes and sends a written itemised quote with clearing and repair on separate lines. Free.