Selly Park Gutter Cleaning for Back Runs Under Garden Trees
Most gutter trouble in Selly Park comes from the garden, not from the road. These houses sit on generous plots with old, well planted rear gardens, and in a great many of them a sycamore, lime or aged fruit tree stands close enough to the back wall that its whole leaf load goes into the rear gutter instead of onto the lawn. The front elevation can look perfectly clear while the run over the back bedroom is packed solid.
That matters because a rear blockage is the one nobody sees. It overflows into a border or onto a flat extension roof, quietly, for weeks, and the first symptom is usually a damp patch on an upstairs back wall or a downpipe that starts to gurgle. We clear the whole run from ground level with a pole vacuum, so nothing at all touches the original cast iron guttering that much of the Edwardian stock here still carries.
- Service
- Gutter Cleaning
- Area covered
- Selly Park, B29
- Local authority
- Birmingham
- How we do it
- Cleared and vacuumed from the ground, with camera confirmation
- From our Selly Oak base
- 5 minutes
- Price
- Quoted per property before we start (quoting and booking questions)
- Booking
- Call or WhatsApp 07788 574283
Garden trees over the eaves, and cast iron under them
Proximity is the whole story. A street tree twenty feet from the kerb drops most of its load onto the pavement. A garden tree whose branches overhang the eaves drops it directly into the channel, and it goes in wet, so it packs down into a silt bed that the next windy day never shifts. Selly Park then adds two things on top: original cast iron guttering on the older houses, heavy, brittle at the joints and easily distorted by the top of a ladder, and a fair number of gardens on the low, damp ground towards the River Rea where nothing dries and moss roots in the run itself.
- Mature garden trees overhanging the eaves, feeding the channel directly instead of the ground
- Rear runs that overflow into a border or onto a flat extension roof, so a blockage is invisible from the street
- Original cast iron guttering on the Edwardian houses, which the top of a ladder distorts at the joints
- Damp, shaded gardens on the low ground towards the River Rea, where moss roots inside the run
- Long runs on substantial semis and detached houses, with far more gutter than the frontage suggests
Emptying the silt bed from the ground with a camera on the pole
The whole run is emptied from ground level by a vacuum on a pole, with a camera sitting on the head so we can see what is coming out and what is left behind. The silt and moss bed comes out along with the leaves, because taking the loose litter off and leaving the bed beneath it only buys you until January. Downpipes are then flushed and watched until they run clear, since a clean gutter feeding a choked pipe still overflows onto your wall. We photograph the condition as we go: cracked cast iron sections, sagging brackets, failed joints and any gap opening between gutter and fascia.
- Ground level pole vacuum with a camera head, so nothing rests on cast iron or on a conservatory frame below
- Silt and moss bed lifted out, not only the leaf litter sitting on top of it
- Every downpipe flushed and watched through until it runs freely
- Rear and extension runs done first, because in Selly Park those are the ones actually blocked
More detail on the equipment and the order of work: how we do gutter cleaning, step by step.
Autumn on the back of the house
November is the month that matters here, once the garden trees have genuinely finished. We cover Selly Park from the Pershore Road across to the Edgbaston boundary and down the streets towards the Recreation Ground and the Rea, and the heaviest properties are those with old trees close against the rear elevation or backing onto the green space. Nobody needs to be home, but we do need to get into the back garden, which on these plots usually means a side gate unlocked or a code for it. Being five minutes away, a visit within the week is usually possible.
Rear extensions and bay roofs add run the frontage hides
The run length, the height, and the volume of what is sitting up there. A Selly Park semi carries more run than its frontage implies once you count the rear extension, the bay roof and the garage, so the quote follows what is up there, whatever the width of the frontage. Five years of neglect, with seedlings rooted in and the moss bed compacted hard, takes noticeably longer than a yearly clear, so a first visit normally costs more than the ones that follow it. Where the guttering is continuous across a pair of semis, doing both together is the approach that works.
Late November, with a spring clear under overhanging branches
Once a year is the minimum in Selly Park and late November is the right slot, after the garden trees have properly dropped. Twice a year is worth it where branches overhang the eaves directly, with a second clear in late spring to take out the blossom, seed and helicopter load. If a run is overflowing now, do not wait for autumn: standing water gets in behind the fascia, and at that point it stops being a cleaning job.
Overall satisfied with service this company has provided leaving windows & guttering clean.
Great services delivered by Charles recommend for others
Absolutely brilliant service. Adefem was professional, job well done. Everything was left beautifully clean, and I was genuinely impressed.
Selly Park · Gutter Cleaning
Frequently asked questions
Nothing leans on it. Original cast iron is heavy and brittle at the joints, and a ladder top against it can crack a section or pull a bracket clean out of the fascia. We clear the entire run with a pole vacuum from ground level, which also means nothing is standing in your border or on a conservatory roof underneath.
Because the big trees in Selly Park stand in the back gardens. Anything overhanging the eaves at the back feeds that run directly, so the rear can be solid while the front is nearly clear. That is why we start at the back here and work round to the front.
Listen and look at the back of the house. A downpipe that gurgles or backs up, a dark drip line onto the border directly beneath the gutter, green staining running down the fascia, or moss visibly sitting proud of the channel. By the time a damp patch shows on the inside of an upstairs wall, it has been going on a good while.
Yes, along with any conservatory run, and around here they usually need it more than the house does. They sit lower, they are often directly beneath the branches, and they take everything washing down off the main roof slope on top of their own leaf load, so they block first and then overflow down the wall or the frame.
Yes. We photograph it and show you. Replacement is not something we do, so there is no incentive at our end to talk the problem up. On the older Selly Park houses with original cast iron it is usually one joint or a single section, not the whole run, and that is worth knowing before somebody quotes you for the lot.
Other cleaning we do in Selly Park
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