There are different factors that determine what tools to use for gutter cleaning: The height of the gutters, temperature, the type of roof, the pitch of the roof, the type of debris in the gutters, and whether or not the guards are on the gutters. Clean gutters require many tools to take care of different scenarios.
Ladder
The ladder should always have a stabilizer to prevent it from leaning on the gutters and levelers for the base because the ground is always uneven at some point during the job. Sometimes cleaning a gutter from a ladder is the only way.
Dormers
Some houses have dormers with gutters. Getting on the roof is necessary to reach those areas. We advise wearing fall protection especially for roofs with steep pitch or moldy shingles.
Bucket
If there are a lot of leaves or shingle granules, and nice landscaping under the gutters, it is best to get a five gallon bucket and place the debris in there.
Pressure Washer to Rinse It Out
After handpicking a gutter, a pressure washer is necessary to rinse it out. Garden hose pressure can rinse it, but it may be arduously slow and not have good reach. Making sure the downspouts are functioning is part of the gutter cleaning, so if it has a clog, blasting it out with a pressure washer from the top can work in a simple scenario. If the clog is more resistant, then one may need to take apart the downspout at the clog and pull the debris out.
Pry Bar and Rubber Mallet (Winter)
If frozen debris are inside the gutter, use a pry bar and rubber mallet. The satisfying thing about gutter cleaning ice chunks, is that they come out in long pieces.
Sewer Jetter to Clean Gutters from Within
The last resort is inserting a sewer jetter from below to solve the problem. Check out our youtube video on different jetters here: Sewer jetter video. A jetter cleans gutters with guards by spraying high pressure water underneath the guard while traveling through the gutter. When the jam is too severe, one should remove multiple guards and pressure wash or pick it out.
Gutter Cleaning Vaccuum
If you have the disposable income, you can use different types of gutter vaccuum systems. This is ideal for gutters without guards. This is great for people who are adverse to ladders, but it may not access certain hard to reach areas. The suction can handle most gutter jobs. More cons are the heavy weight and large size.
Leaf Blower Hook Gutter Attachments (Candy Cane)
In our experience, a hook gutter attachment does not work very well. You cannot see your work unless you attach a camera or fly up a drone. Usually the work is spotty and the job is not complete. Also, the debris tends to blow back to the user. Some homeowner’s do candy cane work blind and leave their gutters still clogged.
Gutter Cleaning Spoon and Scoop
This attachment is great to reach debris far away. It is a plastic spoon and scoop, so being forceful could break it. It is useful when there are a lot of bushes or trees in the way, no roof access, and limited areas to place the ladder. Here is the link for the scoop: Gutter Cleaning Scoop
Drone
Sometimes it is good to send up a drone before getting all the gutters. Some may be empty and some clogged. It saves the expenditure of carrying the ladders to take a look.
Since people should clean their gutters once or twice a year, it does not seem like a bad idea to call Billy Goat Gutter Cleaning to do the arduous work for you. If you want to learn more about pressure washing, check out why we often soft wash more than pressure wash in this article: Soft wash versus pressure wash.
This was a double gutter guard in a gutter that we had to use a sewer jetter to clean out. It was an extra long job and the bottom gutter trapped most of the debris under it instead of letting it flow properly. We could not have done this without the sewer jetter because a pressure washer could not move the debris under the bottom guard.