Spring Gutter Cleaning Tips
You can find Spring Cleaning Checklists all over the internet. Here’s a Spring Cleaning Checklist from Martha Stewart, This is great, but one thing that most checklists forget to include is cleaning out your gutters!
Cleaning out your gutters, in our opinion, is the biggest potential problem to easily overlook. Gutters are on your home for a reason. They are there to get water away from your home. If you don’t allow the gutters to do their job, then that water is ending up at the base of your home. This can cause foundation problems or basement flooding. And you don’t want that to happen.
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Cleaning Clogged Gutters
Spring is an important time of the year to clean your gutters. Depending on what type of trees are around your home, will determine when and how many times you should clean our your gutters. Some trees release strings of pollen, some let off seeds and some with blossoms which then shed those flower petals.
So here are some gutter cleaning tips:
Know Your Trees
Pay attention to when they shed whatever it is they are shedding.
Plan Accordingly
It’s going to take a while to clean out your gutters, so do it the weekend after everything falls. If you are worried that your gutters are stuffed, get out there before the next rainfall. This will ensure the gutters are flowing properly and not overflowing when the next storm comes through.
How Clean Your Gutters
Now it is time to get up by the gutters. We recommend getting up on the roof if you can, it allows for more space to move around and makes cleaning go a lot quicker; otherwise, use a ladder or stepladder. (Of course, if you are not confident in your abilities, please call a professional. The last thing you want to do is end up in the hospital because you went all Humpty Dumpty for the neighborhood kids.)
Tools & Supplies for Cleaning Gutters
Some like to use a leaf blower and others, a garden hose. We recommend a good old-fashioned (kind of) plastic gutter scoop and bucket. This keeps the debris under control instead of blowing it all over the deck, patio, driveway, etc. or from slopping over the front of the gutter and down your siding. A bucket is nice, because it’s small and easy to handle. When it is full, empty the bucket into a larger heavy-duty garbage bag placed somewhere on the roof or lawn.
Wear Gloves
Gardening or waterproof gloves are a nice touch if you don’t like getting too dirty, but beware; cleaning your gutters is a dirty job.
Cleaning Up
When your are done, or the garbage bag is full and you want to drop it down from the roof…
Make sure there are no people or pets around.
If you are the only one home when you are doing this (which we don’t recommend) don’t drop the bag on the ladder. You could be stranded on the roof for a while.
If the debris is really wet, don’t fill up the bag all the way. It becomes very heavy, and when you drop it, it’s almost like a giant nasty water balloon. You don’t want to have to clean that up again when it bursts 10 buckets worth of stinky gutter muck all over your freshly washed car.
Take Breaks
Don’t be afraid to take a water break because it is always hotter up on the roof than on the ground.
Never Clean Your Gutters Again
The last step is to put Raindrop® Gutter Guards on your home so that you don’t have to do this ever again.