How often to clean your gutters (and what happens if you don't)
Gutter clearing is the cheapest roof maintenance there is and the one most often skipped, largely because the damage it prevents shows up on your walls rather than your roof.
Clear your gutters twice a year as standard — late November after leaf fall and again in spring. Properties with overhanging trees, common across Hampton, Teddington and Richmond, need three visits a year. A typical semi-detached clearance runs £80–£150.
The right frequency for this part of London
The default advice is twice a year. In practice, frequency depends on what's above the gutter. A property with no overhanging trees in an open street can often manage one thorough autumn clear. A house under mature limes, planes or sycamores — and there are a great many across Bushy Park's fringes, Teddington and the Richmond side — needs three: one in early autumn as the first leaves drop, one in late November or December once the trees are bare, and one in spring to clear blossom, seeds and moss washed down from the roof.
What actually blocks a gutter
Leaves are only part of it. The mix we pull out is usually leaf litter, roof moss that's been dislodged by rain, grit from weathering concrete tiles, blown seeds, tennis balls, and — surprisingly often — mortar fragments from a failing ridge or verge, which is a useful diagnostic in itself. Sludge at the bottom of a gutter is decomposed leaf matter, and it's heavy: enough of it will pull brackets out of a fascia board on its own.
The damage blocked gutters do
Water overtops the gutter and runs down the wall. On solid brick walls, which is most pre-1930s stock round here, that means saturated masonry, internal damp on the corresponding wall, frost damage to the brick faces and blown pointing. It also soaks the fascia and soffit behind the gutter, rotting timber boards and rusting brackets. Further down, persistent overflow at the base of a wall can find its way below damp-proof course level. A £100 clearance neglected for five years routinely turns into a £2,000 roofline and repointing job.
Why leaking joints are not always a blockage
If a gutter drips at a joint even when clear, the union seal has hardened — very common on uPVC after 15 years. Replacing individual unions is cheap; replacing a whole run that's brittle and sagging is a roofline job. We check both when we clear, and we'll tell you which you've got rather than quietly rebooking a clearance every year on a gutter that needs replacing.
Gutter guards: worth it or not
Honest answer: sometimes. Good-quality brush or mesh guards genuinely reduce leaf blockage under heavy tree cover, but they don't eliminate maintenance — fine debris and moss still build up on top of the mesh, and a clogged guard is harder to clear than an open gutter. We fit them where the tree situation justifies it and steer people away where the gutter would be fine with a proper annual clear.
What a clearance should include
Full removal of debris by hand or vacuum, flushing each run with water to confirm flow, checking and clearing the downpipe and gulley at the bottom, checking bracket security and fall, and a photo record of the gutter before and after. If the downpipe isn't checked, the gutter isn't cleared — a blocked downpipe backs the whole run up within one heavy shower.
Costs across the TW and KT postcodes
A terraced or standard semi-detached clearance is typically £80–£150 depending on height, gutter length and access. Detached properties and anything requiring a tower or scaffold cost more. We're straight about access: where a gutter can't be reached safely from a ladder we say so and price the platform rather than sending someone up something they shouldn't be on.
Bundling it with the rest of the roof
The most useful visit is the one where somebody looks at the whole roofline while they're up there — gutter condition, fascia and soffit timber, verge mortar, the state of the tiles at the eaves. We include that check as standard, send you the photos, and only quote for extra work if there's something genuinely worth doing.
FAQs
Late November or early December, once the deciduous trees are bare, is the single most valuable clear. Add a spring visit for blossom, seed and washed-down moss.
On a bungalow or single-storey extension, carefully, yes. At two-storey height with a ladder on soft ground it's genuinely one of the more dangerous jobs a homeowner attempts, and it's not worth the saving.
Typically £80–£150 for a standard semi in our area, more for detached properties or where a tower is needed for safe access.
No, they reduce it. Fine debris and moss still collect on top, so plan on an annual check even with guards fitted.
Related reading
More on maintenance & seasonal and the jobs that usually come with it.
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- Roofing for period and historic homesProperty types
Looking for something specific? See our roofing services, cost guides, common roof problems or the areas we cover.
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