Gutter cleaning in Washington, DC

Upper Northwest has some of the heaviest canopy in the region. Streets in Chevy Chase DC, the Palisades and Spring Valley sit under old white oaks, red maples and tulip poplars that can top 90 feet, and the same is true of older lots in Bethesda, McLean and Takoma Park. One mature oak can drop enough leaves to fill a 40-foot gutter run twice over.

Different trees clog gutters in different ways. Willow oak leaves are small and narrow, so they pack down into a dense mat that water can't pass through. Maple leaves are broad and slide toward the outlet, where they plug the downspout in a single wad. Tulip poplars shed seed cones that break apart into hundreds of papery pieces through the winter.

Then there's the grit. Asphalt shingles shed granules every time it rains, and that sand settles under the leaves. After a few seasons it forms a layer of sludge that holds water against the gutter bottom, adds weight to the hangers and gives seedlings a place to sprout.

Timing matters more than most people think. Oaks around Washington hang on to their leaves late, and many don't finish dropping until early December. A cleaning in mid-October looks great for two weeks, then the gutters fill right back up before the first freeze.

We schedule most fall cleanings from mid-November into the second week of December, once the bulk of the canopy is down. That gets the gutters clear before winter, when packed leaves freeze in place and turn the trough into a dam that pushes meltwater back under the roof edge.

The second visit belongs in late spring. Oak catkins, maple helicopters, poplar blossoms and pine pollen all come down from April into May, and they're lighter than leaves but clog downspout screens just as well. Houses with only a street tree or two can often skip the spring round; houses under a full canopy usually can't.

We clean gutters by hand, not with a leaf blower aimed at the roof. Blowing wet debris out of a trough sprays it across the siding, the windows and your neighbor's car, and it leaves the fine sludge behind. Hand scooping gets the troughs down to bare metal.

Every visit covers the same list, and you'll get photos of anything that needs attention:

• Scoop every trough and bag the debris; we haul the bags away
• Flush each run with a hose and watch it drain to the outlet
• Run water down every downspout and clear elbows and ground boots
• Empty conductor heads and outlet strainers on rowhouse roofs
• Check hangers for loose screws and sagging spans
• Look at seams, end caps and miters for drips while the water runs
• Rinse granules and leaf stain off the roof edge where they collect

Rowhouses drain differently from detached homes. The main roof usually slopes to the back, so a single rear gutter or a scupper and conductor head handles all the water from the slab. On a three-story house that gutter can sit 35 feet above an alley that's too narrow for a long extension ladder at a safe angle.

On those houses we reach the gutter from the roof, either through your roof hatch or by ladder from a lower rear addition, and we work along the edge on a tie-off. Where the alley is wide enough and the gutter is only two stories up, we clean from a ladder at ground level, which goes faster and keeps foot traffic off an older membrane.

Conductor heads are the clog we see most on rowhouses. A single fistful of leaves from an alley ailanthus or a neighbor's maple can seal the outlet, and then the whole roof ponds until the water finds a seam. We pull the debris out of the head, run water through the leader below it and check the strainer basket.

Built-in gutters hidden behind a pressed metal or wood cornice collect silt and leaves just like hanging gutters, but they're easy to forget because you can't see them from the street. On many Victorian rowhouses the front box gutter only gets cleaned when it overflows into the front bedroom.

We clean these by hand from the roof side with plastic scoops, because a metal trowel can punch through a thin old tin lining. While the trough is empty we look at the lining, the solder seams and the outlet tube. If the bottom shows rust pinholes or the seams are open, that's a job for box gutter relining, not something another cleaning will fix.

An empty gutter tells you a lot. Once the leaves are out and water is running, sagging spans show up as standing puddles, and leaking corners drip where you can see them. Rot along the fascia board shows up as soft wood under the back edge of the trough.

Small fixes, like driving a loose hanger screw or resealing a single end cap, we usually handle during the visit and note on your photos. Anything bigger gets priced separately so you can decide. Sagging runs, split seams and rusted sections go to our gutter repair work, and we'll tell you if a run is past fixing.

If you're cleaning the same gutters three or four times a year, it may be time to stop fighting the trees. A good micro-mesh guard won't end upkeep entirely, but it cuts it down a lot under heavy oak and poplar cover. Our page on gutter guards for wooded lots explains which types hold up here. To schedule a cleaning, call (202) 771-7443.