Gutters, Once the Leaves Are Actually Down

Every fall we get the same call in the same order.

The first one comes early, usually right after the first pretty weekend in October, when somebody looks up and sees leaves in the gutter. The second one comes in December from the same house, because the trees were nowhere near done.

Here is how it actually goes in Winchester and Frederick County. The maples, dogwoods and sweet gums start showing color in early October. Peak foliage lands mid-to-late October – the pretty part. The oaks turn deep red and brown in early November, and that is when the leaf drop really starts. By mid-to-late November most trees are bare. That is the true end of it.

So the whole trick to gutter timing is not complicated: wait until your trees are actually finished, then do it once. For most houses around here that means the back half of November. If your lot is mostly oak, later still – sometimes into early December. If you have a big maple right over the house, you may genuinely need two visits, and we would rather tell you that up front than pretend one will do.

Which makes October the month to get on the list, not the month to get on the ladder.

What a clogged gutter actually does

It is not the gutter we worry about. It is everything downhill of it.

Water that cannot get into the downspout goes over the edge. In October that is a nuisance – a trench in the mulch, splashback on the siding, a soggy spot by the foundation. In January it is a different animal.

Here is the sequence that costs people real money. Snow melts on a warm roof. The water runs down and hits the cold overhang, where there is a dam of wet leaves and ice sitting in the gutter. It has nowhere to go, so it backs up under the shingles. Shingles shed water going down; they are not built to hold it going sideways. Then it is in the sheathing, then the ceiling, and by the time there is a stain on the drywall it has been wet up there for weeks.

That is a clogged gutter. Same gutter, different month.

What we do when we come out

We are not just scooping. Anybody can scoop.

We clear the troughs by hand, then flush every downspout to make sure it actually runs – a downspout can be clear at the top and packed solid at the elbow, and you would never know until it rains. We check that the water is getting away from the house at the bottom rather than dumping at the corner of the foundation. And while we are up there we look at the things you only see from a ladder: loose spikes, sagging runs, separated seams, rot in the fascia behind the gutter, and any shingle that has lifted over the summer.

That last part is most of the value. The gutter cleaning is an hour. Spotting a rotted fascia board in November, while it is still just a board, is the difference between a small carpentry repair and a much larger one next spring.

The thing about doing it yourself

Plenty of people do, and we are not going to talk anybody out of it. But two honest notes.

The first is ladders. Most of the gutter work around here is on a slope, on soft fall ground, often on a two-storey elevation. We do this every week with the right ladder and stabilisers, and we still take our time. A Saturday afternoon and an extension ladder leaning on aluminium is how people get hurt.

The second is that from the ground you cannot see the fascia. You can see leaves in a gutter from your driveway. You cannot see the soft spot behind it.

While we are up there

Late fall is the month to bundle. If we are already on the ladder, it is very little extra to look at the roofline, check the flashing, and take care of anything small before it goes under snow. Everything on that list is inexpensive in the fall and costly in March. The price does not change – the problem does. In March you are not fixing a board, you are fixing what months of water did to it.

That is the whole argument for fall work, really. It is the same job either way. The only question is whether you are paying for the job or paying for the job plus the damage.

If you want the gutters done once, properly, after the trees are finished – get on the November list now. Free estimates, and we will tell you honestly whether yours can wait another two weeks.