Gutter Cleaning for Cast Iron Under Harborne’s Street Trees
Harborne blocks its gutters every single year and there is no mystery to it. The street trees along Lordswood Road and the roads running off it are mature limes, planes and horse chestnuts, and what they shed in October lands on a roof slope and washes straight into the gutter below. On a two-storey semi that is an inconvenience. On a three-storey villa with cast-iron guttering at second-floor eaves height, left through a winter, it turns into damp in the wall.
Height is what changes this job in B17. Original cast iron is heavy and bolted and puttied at the joints, and a ladder leaned against it will pull a section out of true long before anything visibly breaks. Plenty of Harborne houses also carry older plastic guttering fitted in the seventies and eighties, now brittle after decades of ultraviolet. Both get cleared from the ground here with a pole-mounted vacuum, and nothing at all touches the run itself.
- Service
- Gutter Cleaning
- Area covered
- Harborne, B17
- Local authority
- Birmingham
- How we do it
- Cleared and vacuumed from the ground, with camera confirmation
- From our Selly Oak base
- About 10 minutes
- Price
- Quoted per property before we start (common questions)
- Booking
- Call or WhatsApp 07788 574283
Height, trees and cast iron on the villa roads
Three features of the housing make Harborne gutters demanding. The height: three-storey villas mean long downpipe runs, hopper heads at first-floor level and gutters nobody has looked inside in years, because looking would require a tower. The trees: mature street planting on the villa roads, plus established trees on the boundaries of the long rear gardens, deliver two clear waves, leaf in autumn and blossom and seed in late spring. And the material: cast iron corrodes from the inside wherever wet silt sits against it, and the first sign is usually a rust stain running down the render under a joint rather than a visible overflow.
- Three-storey elevations where the gutter line is far beyond any ladder a homeowner should own
- Cast-iron runs that corrode from the inside wherever wet silt is left sitting against them
- Hopper heads at first-floor level on the villas, which block on their own and are easily forgotten
- Mature limes, planes and chestnuts on the Harborne villa roads, delivering leaf in autumn and seed in spring
- Brittle seventies and eighties plastic guttering, which a ladder cracks rather than merely dents
Pole vacuum to three storeys, then every downpipe flushed
Everything is cleared from the ground with a pole-mounted vacuum reaching all three storeys, so nothing rests against cast iron, brittle plastic, a painted timber fascia or the conservatory frame at the back of the house. We take out silt and moss as well as leaf, because on a cast-iron run it is the wet silt bed that does the corroding. Hopper heads are vacuumed out from the ground with the same pole. Then every downpipe is flushed, including the ones discharging into a gully behind the house, so we know the full length is genuinely running.
- Pole vacuum from ground level to three storeys, with nothing leaning on cast iron or brittle plastic
- Silt and moss taken out as well as leaf, because wet silt is what rots a cast-iron gutter from within
- Hopper heads and rear gullies cleared and flushed as part of the job, never charged as extras
- Cracked sections, failed joints and runs pulling away from the fascia photographed and shown to you
More detail on the equipment and the order of work: gutter cleaning across Birmingham.
Autumn on the Harborne villa roads
October and November are the weeks that matter here, and they are worth booking ahead, because leaf fall on the tree-lined roads arrives more or less all at once. The villa roads off the High Street, Lordswood Road, War Lane and the streets running towards the golf course are the heaviest of it, and a house with a mature lime directly in front of it can fill a gutter in a fortnight. The semis towards Quinton and the newer houses near Harborne Park Road are much lighter and go once a year. Rear runs are reached through a side gate, so it helps if that is unlocked and clear.
From a Quinton-side semi to a villa with hoppers and a bay gutter
Price follows height, length of run and how much is sitting in it. A 1930s semi towards Quinton is a straightforward job at a modest height. A three-storey villa with front and rear runs, a bay roof gutter, two hopper heads and a rear extension below it is a different piece of work and takes considerably longer. Years of compacted silt costs more than one autumn of leaf, because compacted silt has to be broken up before it will lift and the downpipe usually needs rodding as well as flushing. Where a neighbour shares a continuous run with you on one of the terraces off the High Street, we would rather quote both and clear the whole length.
Twice a year under the street trees, once elsewhere
Twice a year for anything under the mature street trees, which covers most of the villa roads: once in late autumn when the leaf is down, once in late spring after the blossom and seed. Once a year is enough for the semis towards Quinton and the newer houses near Harborne Park Road, where the planting is younger and lighter. The late autumn clear is the one that really matters, and it wants doing before sustained winter rain arrives, not in response to it.
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Harborne · Gutter Cleaning
Frequently asked questions
From the ground. Cast iron is heavy and its joints are bolted and puttied, so a ladder head pulls a section out of alignment and opens a joint you cannot see from below. We clear from ground level with a pole-mounted vacuum reaching three storeys, and nothing rests on the gutter, the fascia or the render at any point.
Almost always silt sitting wet inside a cast-iron run and corroding it from the inside out, with the stain washing down from a joint. Clearing the silt stops it getting worse. It does not remove the stain and it does not repair a joint that has already gone, and we will photograph what we find and show you which you are dealing with.
Usually because the hopper head is packed, and on these villas it on these villas sits at first-floor level, invisible from below. Debris collects in the hopper and the gutter above it drains fine right up until the moment it does not. We clear the hopper and then flush and, if needed, rod the pipe below it to confirm the whole run is flowing.
Under the mature trees, yes. There are two waves: leaf in October and November, then blossom, seed and catkin in late spring, which is the one people forget. A single autumn visit on a heavily overhung villa often leaves you with a half-full gutter again by June.
Yes, and we take out the silt bed it is rooted in as well as the visible plant, because otherwise it is back next season. Rooted growth on a Harborne villa usually means a run that has been left several years, so we check the joints and brackets underneath it while we are there and show you anything that has given way.
Other cleaning we do in Harborne
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