What a Gutter Cleaning Should Include, Downspouts and All

A gutter cleaning should include three things: the trough emptied by hand, every downspout flushed until the water runs clean out the bottom, and the debris hauled away instead of left in a pile by the garage. The downspouts are the part that actually causes most overflow problems on Twin Cities houses, and they are also the part most likely to get skipped.

The trough is the easy half

The trough is the long horizontal channel bolted to the fascia. It is the part you can see from the ground, so it is the part people picture when they think about gutter cleaning, and it is the half that takes the least skill. Leaves, seed pods, and shingle grit settle in it, and getting them out is mostly a matter of reaching every foot of it and scooping.

Rinsing the trough with a hose is not the same as emptying it. Water pushes wet leaf pack along the channel until it reaches the outlet and stops there, which turns a gutter problem into a downspout problem. The debris has to come out by hand first.

Downspouts are what actually clog

The downspout is the vertical pipe that carries water to the ground. Almost every one has at least two bends in it: an elbow at the top where it leaves the gutter, and another at the bottom where it turns away from the house. Those bends are where wet leaves wad up and stop, and nothing is going to wash that through on its own.

Rain reaching a packed elbow backs up into the trough, and then the trough overflows at its lowest point, usually over the front edge and straight down onto the foundation or the window below it. People see water pouring off the gutter and assume the gutter is full. Often the gutter is fine and one elbow three feet lower is the whole problem.

Buried drain lines are their own version of this. Plenty of older St. Paul and Minneapolis houses run the downspout into a clay or plastic tile that carries water out toward the yard or the street. If that line is root bound or collapsed, cleaning the gutter above it changes nothing, and that is worth finding out before you pay for the same cleaning again next fall.

What a finished job looks like

After the work is done, you should be able to point to all of this:

• The trough emptied by hand along its full length, not rinsed from one end
• Every downspout flushed from the top until water runs clear out the bottom
• The discharge end checked, so you know where the water is actually going once it leaves the house
• Debris bagged and hauled, and the gutter line looked over for loose spikes or sagging sections

That last item is free information and worth asking for. Anyone who just spent a couple of hours at your roofline knows whether a section is pulling away from the fascia, and that is a much cheaper fix now than after a winter of ice hanging on it.

Why the downspouts matter more in Minnesota

Freeze and thaw is what makes a blocked downspout here different from a blocked downspout somewhere warm. Water standing in a plugged elbow in November freezes solid, and a frozen column does not drain when the next warm afternoon melts snow off the roof. That water has nowhere to go but over the front edge or back under the shingles.

Timing works against the easy answer too. Maples and ash drop early, but the oaks across much of St. Paul hold their leaves into November, so a cleaning done in early October often needs a second pass. There is more on that in our post on when to clean gutters in the Twin Cities.

When you do not need to hire anyone

A single story house with no big trees over it and gutters you can reach from a stepladder on level ground is a Saturday morning. A bucket, a garden hose, and a pair of gloves cover it. If that describes your house, keep the money and do it yourself.

The job changes when the ladder gets tall. Two stories, a walkout basement that puts one side of the house a story higher than the other, soft soil under the ladder feet, or a roof edge you cannot reach without leaning out are the conditions that send people to the emergency room every fall. That is the honest line for when it is worth paying someone.

What to ask whoever you hire

Ask one question: do you flush the downspouts and check the discharge end. The answer tells you whether you are buying a gutter cleaning or a gutter emptying, and the two are priced about the same. Ask me the same thing.

Gleam Team cleans gutters starting at $120, backed by the Gleam Guarantee. We work in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and the suburbs out to about 25 miles, and you can read more about the gutter cleaning service. When you are ready, request a free quote or book a free 10-minute consultation.