We clear gutters, then test every downspout

Every gutter cleaning follows the same order

A gutter cleaning starts at the roof edge. We work along each gutter and pull out everything sitting in it: wet leaves, pine needles, oak tassels and seed pods. Wet debris is heavy. It packs into a flat mat on the bottom that holds water against the metal for days after a storm. All of it comes out, down to the bare gutter, before anyone touches a downspout.

The downspouts come next, and they are where the worst clogs usually sit. Debris rides the water down to the bends at the top and bottom of the downspout, and it wedges there. A gutter can look clean from the ladder while its downspout is packed solid. So we clear each downspout and run water through it, then watch it come out the bottom at full flow. If water backs up into the gutter instead, that downspout is not done.

Last, we pick up whatever fell into the yard below and look over the gutters while they are empty. That is when you can spot problems a full gutter hides, like a bracket pulling loose or a seam that drips. We point those out before we leave. Fixing them is a separate job, and you decide on it once you know what you are looking at.

• Leaves and needles cleared from every gutter
• Every downspout cleared, then tested with water
• Debris picked up from the yard below
• Loose brackets and dripping seams pointed out
• Free estimate before any work starts

Florida trees fill gutters all year

Up north, people clean gutters once in the fall and mostly call it done. Trees around Oldsmar do not keep that schedule. Live oaks drop their old leaves in spring, right as the new ones come in, and they shed stringy tassels and acorns on top of that. Pines drop needles all year. Palms let go of fronds and seed stalks whenever a storm shakes them.

Pine needles cause the most trouble. They lie flat and weave into a mat that catches everything else that lands on it. A gutter under a pine can fill faster than one under a big oak. Oak tassels do the same thing in spring. They go down wet and dry into a crust. After that, the next hard rain runs right over the top of the gutter instead of into it.

The trees decide when a cleaning does the most good. A cleaning in late spring, once the oaks finish dropping, empties the gutters right before the summer storms start. Houses under pines usually need a second cleaning later in the year, because the needles never really stop. A house with no trees close to the roof can go longer between visits, and we will tell you that when it is what we see.

An overflowing gutter soaks the wall below

Summer rain here comes hard and fast. A strong afternoon storm can put more water on a roof in a few minutes than a clogged gutter can carry. Once the gutter is full, the water goes over the front edge in a sheet. It lands right against the house and splashes back onto the wall. Over a season, it also cuts a trench in the mulch bed under the roof edge.

A lot of homes around Oldsmar and Clearwater are concrete block with a stucco finish, built on a slab. Block and stucco handle rain fine when it runs off and keeps going. They hold up badly when water pours down the same stretch of wall in every storm. That is where you find dark streaks and paint bubbling near the bottom of the wall, usually right under a corner where the gutter is packed.

The water that stays inside a clogged gutter does damage too. It sits against the fascia, the board along the roof edge that the gutter is fastened to. On many older homes here that board is wood. Wood that stays wet behind a full gutter goes soft, and then the brackets holding the gutter lose their grip. The gutter starts to lean away from the house, and by then a cleaning is no longer enough.

Some houses make gutter cleaning harder

A lot of homes in Pinellas County have a screened pool enclosure built onto the back of the house. The frame often ties in right under the gutter, and nobody can lean a ladder on a screen panel. Debris knocked off the edge lands on the screen roof or in the pool. On those houses the debris has to be pulled out toward the ladder, never pushed over the side.

Two-story homes put the gutter high over a pool deck or a paver patio. The ladder stands on a hard surface that can be wet and slick, and it gets moved every few steps. That takes longer than a one-story house with grass underneath. It is one reason a cleaning estimate depends on the house itself, and not only on how much gutter it has.

Older asphalt shingle roofs shed grit as they wear, and that grit washes into the gutters with every rain. It sinks under the leaves and settles on the bottom as a layer of dark sand that holds water. It has to come out along with everything else. A heavy layer of grit usually means the shingles are wearing out. When we see a lot of it, we tell you, because that is a question for a roofer.