Gutter Cleaning Cardiff

Gutter Cleaning in Cardiff, Done From the Ground

Every gutter job starts with a walk round the property, looking at the runs, the joints, the downpipe positions and what the roof is shedding. On a slate roof in Whitchurch that is usually moss and the grit that washes out from under the courses. On a newer estate it is leaves, felt fragments and the fine silt that settles over a couple of wet winters. What is sitting in the gutter decides how it comes out.

The clearing is done from the ground. We use a wet and dry gutter vacuum on carbon fibre poles that reach around 12 metres, which covers almost every house in Cardiff, including the three storey terraces in Roath and Cathays. Debris travels down the hose into a sealed drum on the van instead of being flicked over the gutter edge onto your patio, path or car. Nothing leans on your fascia, nothing stands in a flower bed, and nobody is working above your conservatory roof.

Camera Footage Before and After, Not a Verbal Report

A wireless camera clips onto the top pole section and sends the picture to a screen we hold at ground level. Before we start, you can see what is actually in your gutters. When we finish, we run the camera along the same lengths again so you can see a bare gutter bed and water moving to the outlet. The footage goes to you. Guttering is the one exterior job you cannot check yourself, which is why plenty of people have paid twice for the same blocked corner.

What Blocked Gutters Actually Do to a House

Rain is the whole problem here. A roof with a 60 square metre plan sheds around 600 litres for every 10 mm that lands on it, and all of that is meant to leave through two or three 68 mm downpipes. Block the route and the water does not stop arriving, it simply finds the wall instead. That is the entire mechanism, and it is why a gutter overflowing in October has often done real damage by March.

The damage rarely announces itself. Water spilling over a blocked gutter runs down the same stretch of wall every time it rains, and on painted render or K Rend that leaves a dark green stripe a hose will not shift. Behind the stripe the render stays wet, and saturated render is what produces frost damage, blown patches and eventually a damp corner on an upstairs bedroom wall. On older Cardiff brick the overflow soaks the mortar and drives the damp inward. Rotten fascia board and dropped brackets follow, because a gutter packed with wet moss is heavy.

Signs Your Gutters Are Blocked

• Water sheeting over the front edge of the gutter in rain instead of running to the downpipe
• Green streaks or dark tide marks on the wall below a joint or a corner
• Grass or weeds growing out of the gutter, which means there is enough silt up there to hold soil
• One downpipe staying silent in heavy rain while the one next to it is running
• Dripping from the gap between the gutter and the fascia board
• Moss and roof grit appearing on the driveway or patio underneath
• A length of gutter visibly sagging or out of line between its brackets
• A damp patch inside on an upstairs wall, usually in a corner

A considered gutter cleaning process, start to finish

1. Walk the whole run. We check gutter heights, joints, downpipe positions, conservatory and extension gutters, and anything that needs moving out of the way. The price is confirmed before a pole comes off the van.
2. Camera survey first. The pole camera goes along each run so we both see what is in there. If a bracket has pulled away or a joint is open, you hear about it now rather than after the invoice.
3. Vacuum the gutter. We work from the far end of the run back towards the outlet, so debris is pulled away from the downpipe rather than pushed into it. Moss, silt, leaves and roof grit all go into the drum.
4. Clear and flush the downpipes. The outlet is cleared, the pipe is rodded, then water goes down it until we can see it running out at the bottom. We check the shoe and the gully it discharges into as well.
5. Second camera pass. The same lengths are filmed again so you can see bare gutter and water draining properly. The before and after footage is sent to you.
6. Leave it tidy. Everything that came out leaves with us. Hard surfaces under the run get rinsed off so the patio and driveway look as they did when we arrived.

Downpipes Are Where the Blockage Usually Sits

Downpipes are the part of the system that fails first and the part that gets skipped. A blockage forms at a bend, at a swan neck round an extension, or at the shoe above the gully, and the plug is usually moss that has soaked and dried for years until it has the density of turf. Vacuuming the gutter above it changes nothing. We rod every pipe, flush it through, then stand at the bottom and watch the water run out before calling it clear.

On the terraced streets in Roath, Splott and Cathays the pipe often discharges into a back gully that is silted up as well, so that gets cleared on the same visit. A clean gutter feeding a blocked pipe still overflows, and that is the most common reason a house ends up cleaned twice in one year. If a pipe turns out to be split or a bracket has come off the wall, you get a photo and a straight answer rather than a quiet clean over the top of it.

Fascias, Soffits and UPVC on the Same Visit

Once the gutters are clear, the black streaking on the white UPVC underneath is the next thing you will notice. It is road film and algae, and it sits worst on the front elevation of anything facing a busy Cardiff road. Fascia and soffit cleaning costs far less on the same visit than as a separate job, because the access is already set up. It is a soft brush on a pole with a low pressure water feed, never a pressure washer, which would force water up behind the boards. We do the outside face of the gutter at the same time, since that is the part everyone else sees.

Flats, Three Storey Houses and Awkward Access

Cardiff has a lot of tall, narrow property. Three storey terraces around Cathays and Roath, converted flats in Canton and Grangetown, and rear elevations you could not get a ladder to without going through a neighbour's garden. The pole system reaches most of it from a standing position on the ground, which is the main reason we use it. Where a rear gutter genuinely cannot be reached, we will say so on the phone rather than turn up and charge you for a look. For blocks of flats we quote per building and work with the managing agent or whoever holds the keys.

How Often Should Gutters Be Cleaned?

Once a year suits most properties. Booking the clean for late autumn, after the leaves have finished dropping and before the winter rain sets in, gets the most out of a single visit. Twice a year is worth it if mature trees overhang the roof, which covers a lot of Penylan, Cyncoed, Lisvane and Llandaff, or if a north-facing slate roof sheds moss all year. A modern tile roof with nothing above it can often stretch to 18 months. If you have just moved in, have them checked whatever the season, because a first clean almost always turns up a dead downpipe.

What changes the price of gutter cleaning

As a guide, a two bedroom terrace with one front run and one rear run tends to land around £60 to £90. A three or four bedroom semi with an extension or conservatory is more often £90 to £140. Three storey properties, long runs and heavily blocked systems sit above that. Those are indications rather than quotes. What moves the figure is gutter length, height, access, the number of downpipes and how long it has been since the last clean. Send photos of the front and back of the house and we can usually give a firm price without visiting.

Gutter Cleaners Covering Cardiff and South Wales

We work out of a unit in Cardiff and cover Cardiff and the wider South Wales area, including Roath, Penylan, Cyncoed, Lisvane, Llanishen, Whitchurch, Rhiwbina, Radyr, Llandaff, Canton, Pontcanna, Grangetown, Splott, Rumney, Llanrumney and Cathays, and out to Barry, Penarth and Newport. We have been cleaning exteriors here since 2019, and our Google rating is 5.0 from five reviews. Phone 07576 128903 or email Liamdunn2406@outlook.com. Someone answers seven days a week, 7:00 to 21:30. Tell us the street and the property type and we can usually get you booked in the same week.