Find a Gutter Installer you can trust in Isle Of North Uist.

A gutter is part of the system that takes rainwater away from a building. Every home will have some form of guttering system to stop water from dripping off the roof and into the walls. It’s important to keep your gutters clear because if water starts to seep into your home’s walls, you’re likely to get damp.

A guttering system consists of half pipes, troughs, bends and downpipes. They’re usually cylindrical in shape but they may be square on some homes and in countries outside of the UK. Technically, the gutter is the part that you’ll see across your roof that collects rainwater. The water will then feed into a downpipe from your roof’s edge to the base of your home, where you can collect it in something like a water butt, or it will be discharged to a surface water drain or soakaway.

In early times, gutters used to be made from lined wood or stone. Lead was often used as the liner to stop rainwater from seeping through the material, but you won’t see it used much anymore. These days, most homes have uPVC guttering as it’s a hardwearing plastic that should last a long time. But you’ll also see gutters made from aluminium, cast iron and copper, especially on period homes or those in a conservation area.

Every home needs a guttering system to ensure that rainwater doesn’t affect the foundations of the property. It’s also important to keep the gutters clear of debris like fallen leaves, as this will cause them to overflow, potentially causing water to soak into the walls and causing damp.

As long as you can access them safely, it’s fairly easy to clean soffits and fascias. Using a sponge and warm water to scrub them is a good way to get off most types of dirt. You might want to add detergent or bleach to the water to make it more effective.

Once you’ve scrubbed your soffits and fascias, rinse them with clean water to make sure you’ve got all of the dirt and detergent off.

Clean of your conservatory gutter is probably not one of the most enjoyable chores you’d like to take on around the house. Not only is it messy and tedious, but it’s also time consuming and smelly. It’s a job every home and property owner would rather avoid, but unfortunately everyone has to do it. It’s a necessity due to the fact that neglect gutters holds and harbours mould, moss as well as plant debris. It would have been better if this is only disgusting, but the actual truth is that should be the least of your worries as this gradual build up of organic material in your conservatory gutters can minimize their drainage abilities, leading to leakages and spills that can damage your conservatory.

Cleaning of your conservatory gutter is a task that can be done regardless of your level of experience. However, it’s advisable to call in a professional for help especially if you lack the confidence required to pull it off.

• Use a ladder for a closer look. Cleaning your gutters from the ground by poking it with a hooked tool might seem the best way out, but in truth you risk damaging the gutters or brackets and marking the conservatory panes when you don’t see what you’re doing.
• Invest in specialist tools. For expert DIYers, taking off your downpipes from the wall to clean might be a pretty easy task. However, for most people it can be extremely frustrating. As a result, there’s the need to get hold of some flexible gutter brushes. With a bendable stem and stiff bristles, these are able to hook and dislodge dirt and leaves inside your downpipes with relative ease.

If you live in an average home with an average amount of guttering and you’re used to a bit of DIY, it’s relatively easy to replace gutters. But if you have a home that’s more than two-storey or you have guttering that’s more complicated, it’s best left to the professionals.

Lots of homes these days have uPVC guttering. uPVC is a hard-wearing plastic that will last a long time without much maintenance except your usual gutter clearing. It’s relatively light, so lots of people think it’s easy to replace uPVC gutters. If you live in a bungalow, you may be able to just use a ladder to take down your old guttering and replace it with new uPVC gutters, but if you live in a two-storey home it can be a bit more complicated. If you do attempt to replace your gutters yourself, make sure you’ve got a sturdy ladder that will comfortably reach the right height, and never rest it on the fascia or the guttering itself.

If you have cast iron or copper guttering, this is much heavier and bulkier than uPVC. Certainly don’t try to replace these on your own – make sure you have another competent DIYer to help you. Reputable roofline specialists will use scaffold towers to make it easier to handle heavy gutters and they will always work in pairs on this type of guttering, so make sure you have the right tools and equipment to work with.

Just because it’s easy to replace gutters, it doesn’t mean you should. It’s better to ask a reliable roofline company to help you, since they have the skills to fit guttering properly and have experience with working at height.

You can paint your soffits and fascias if they’re made of wood. In fact, it’s a good idea to do this every few years, as it can help to preserve them and keep them looking smart.

You can choose what you paint your soffits and fascias with by deciding what kind of look you want to achieve. You can stain them if you want to maintain a natural wood look, or use an exterior gloss or satin paint if you want to change their colour.

You don’t always need scaffolding to replace guttering. If your home is a bungalow, the tradespeople might only need a ladder to replace your guttering. It’s when your home is two storeys or more that scaffolding is more necessary.

You might not need full scaffolding for a simple two-storey home. Guttering specialists use scaffold towers, which are the platforms you see underneath the scaffolding, where the installation is relatively straightforward. You might need scaffolding to replace guttering when there are obstructions to towers being used – for example, if you have a conservatory or the ground is very uneven. It's more likely that specialist roofline companies will use scaffold towers when necessary. Sole traders that replace guttering as part of their services may be comfortable using sturdy ladders.

There’s no legal requirement to say that you must have scaffolding when fitting guttering, but it is a good idea when working on homes rather than bungalows. If you’re unsure whether you need full scaffolding for your gutter replacement project, get a few quotes from reputable businesses of different sizes. If you’ve been quoted by one company that you need full scaffolding whereas everyone else says that only towers are needed, it’s likely that the job is perfectly safe to carry out with just towers.

It can be a huge headache, but cleaning of gutters is a task that needs to be done and even more so when it’s a stained white gutter. Nobody want to do it, but everybody has to. If you happen to lack the required confidence to pull this off as it has to do with working at heights, then we’d strongly recommend that you get in touch with a reliable professional who can guarantee the best results for help and also save you some time and money from potential costly errors. In this post, we’re going to show you some of effective way in which you can tackle stained white gutters effectively.

Firstly, you’ll have to take out the ladder with a pair of rubber gloves. Simply position the ladder safely, climb up the roof and start removing the leaves and other debris clogging up the gutters. You can also make use of a garden trowel to remove the very thick debris. Once done, spray the gutter using a garden hose to flush out the dirt as this will make the stains visible. Then prior to cleaning, ensure to cover the plants or landscape underneath with tarp or plastic sheet since the cleaning solution may negatively impact the vegetation.

Start to clean by spraying an all-purpose cleaner on the stains and srub them off using a scrub brush. You can also try a mixture of 1/4 of water with 1 cup of bleach and 1 teaspoon of dish soap. Dip your scrub brush in this solution to scrub off the stains. The bleach mixture is guaranteed to eliminate any mold or mildew that growing on your gutters with ease.