Gutter Cleaning in Smethwick

Silt and moss, not leaves, in a Smethwick terrace run

Smethwick fills its gutters differently from the leafy Birmingham suburbs, and it is worth knowing why before you book on an autumn schedule. There are few mature street trees over these terraces, so what silts the runs up is moss shed off old clay tiles, roof grit, wind-blown rubbish and airborne grit off the main roads, which packs into a dense silt that holds standing water. On top of that, many of these houses are let, and reporting a downpipe that gurgles is nobody’s job, so the first anyone hears of it is a rear bedroom wall going damp in February.

• One continuous run across a whole terrace, so a blockage three doors along still overflows onto your back wall
• Few mature street trees, so the fill is packed silt, roof grit and moss off old clay tiles, with few autumn leaves
• Rear runs over a walled yard, reachable only along an entry about a metre wide
• Let property where a slow downpipe goes unmentioned for a year and then shows up as damp on an upstairs back wall
• Communal rainwater goods on the post-war blocks, ordered and paid for by whoever manages the building

Street and yard level only, with outshot roofs left alone

It all comes out from street and yard level on a vacuum head at the top of a pole, the only sensible approach on a terrace where the rear outshot roof will not carry a person and there is no room for a ladder in a metre-wide entry. Poles go through in sections and get put together in the yard. We take out packed silt and moss as well as the loose material, since it is silt that holds water on a shallow run, then flush each downpipe through to the gully in the yard to prove the length is flowing. Anything cracked, sagging or open at a joint is photographed and shown to you.

• Pole vacuum worked from the ground and from the yard, with nobody standing on a rear outshot roof
• Poles carried through the entry in sections and assembled at the back, because the passage will not take a made-up length
• Silt and moss lifted out along with the loose debris, since silt is what keeps a shallow run standing in water
• Downpipes flushed to the yard gully so we know the whole shared length drains, not only the bit above your house

More detail on the equipment and the order of work: our gutter cleaning method.

Clearing a whole Smethwick run, not one house

The work centres on the terraced grid around Cape Hill and Windmill Lane, where the runs are long and the ownership along them is mixed. Landlords holding three or four houses in a row are the easiest version, because one person can say yes to the whole length. Where the row is owner-occupied it takes a conversation with neighbours, and we are happy to quote each house on the row at the same time so everyone can book the same visit. On the day we need the entry unlocked and the bins and bikes moved out of it, because that passage is the only route to the back.

Compacted silt, blocked downpipes and shared lengths

A single two-storey terrace on its own is a modest job at a modest height. Two things push it up. Silt compacted over years is slower to lift out than a season of loose debris, and a downpipe in that state usually has to be rodded through before flushing proves anything. And a single house cleared out of a shared run is a half measure, because the length fills again from next door, so it is worth asking the neighbours whether they want theirs done on the same visit.

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Once a year, with shaded rear runs watched more closely

Once a year for a standard terrace here, ideally late autumn, though the timing matters less than it does under trees because the fill is silt and moss rather than leaves. Rear runs over a shaded walled yard are often worth doing twice, since moss keeps arriving off the roof slope whatever the season. For a landlord, a void is the easiest time: the house is empty, the entry can be left open and nobody has to be there.