I use my telephone.

What Elmer said.

Our second autumn in this house, DH was up on the roof of the second story when the neighbor behind us came running through the trees, waving a business card, and calling to me ”tell you husband to get off the roof before he breaks his neck, and call this guy!” Said guy was out a few weeks later installing gutter guards and they are great (one area where they are less effective but we can actually lean out the windows above it with a leaf blower).

We do have a leaf blower attachment that has extenders and then a U curve for cleaning gutters so you can clean from below, it works well as long as you have good earplugs.

I still climb ladders but there are hose attachments you can buy like this…

tj

OMG I laughed out loud at Elmer Fudd's comment!

About 20 years ago we had gutters installed that were supposed to keep leaves out Wellllll, they really don't, at least not as well as expected, and the company must realize that, because for about 18 of the last 20 years they would come out for free to clean them out once a year. Suddenly last year they kind of hemmed and hawed about it, which really kind of pissed me off, but I have bigger battles to fight.

My husband is thinking of getting a small power washer to clean them. I don't know if this will dislodge anything in there but I guess we'll see. They are hard to get into - they are not the typical ones which look pretty much like regular gutters with screening on top. They have a solid top which curves into the opening on the side/front of the gutter. In theory, the water is supposed to follow this curve and go into the gutter while the leaves fall off the front. I guess they work ok but in the winter we have huge icicles hanging off them. Sometimes 6 feet or more long.

I'll be watching this to see if there are any good ideas posted here (other than the phone lol!). In late may and June we get all those "threads" from the oak trees and that's really our main culprit in blocking the gutters, moreso than the leaves.

:)

Dee

I have used this for several years and it has worked great for me on my single story home. I made a device similar to this to inspect the gutters from the ground or you can mount your phone to an extension pole for a video inspection. I also use the device mentioned by tsugajunkie above to wash out the dirt in the gutters but I found it to be ineffective for removing leaves and needles. I also found that a gutter cleaning tube attached to your leaf blower works fairy well.

What Elmer said. It's less expensive when you take into account buying the above-mentioned items, plus the ambulance and ER charges.

The Sunday Chicago Tribune has an article on leaf-guard gutters. Tim Carter, Ask the Builder columnist, says most aren't installed to be an adequate pitch. One brand he liked (not named) has a micro-mesh and was good for 10 years until he found the interior cloged with "moss, lichens and a very fine black organic deposit". (Sounds 'stinky', huh?) He pressure-washed it and was good to go.

We are also in the market for gutter guards. We've always cleaned our own but no one thinks we should still be getting up on ladders, doing that. [g] And even our kids don't want to do it. I'd like to get them installed before leaf season in the Fall. Love hearing how all your gutter guards are working...

I think success depends on the debris, as chisue's post points to. So who did the pressure washing is the salient question. No one looking here would be up for that job. We have researched and debated for years. Bottom line is what works for a season is not the same as working for the long haul. As mentioned slope matters. Also size of the opening to the down spout can make a huge difference. Most people don't want the size of gutters/down spouts it takes for things not to clog up. There is one company that forms the system on site. It costs more than lake front property per foot. Being guaranteed for life is the one feature I have the most confidence in as I am convinced a call or two would be the end result of any system long term and mentioned above. It's the only system I would say could be counted on--someone else climbing the ladder to clear the inevitable clog.

Chisue, I just read that, and he can be kind of right. A lot depends on what kind of debris you get landing on the roof, and the orientation of the gutters. Our nemesis is the little locust tree leaves in the front yard. We have a U-shaped front roof over the front porch. facing north, well-protected by the house on the other three sides. It gets little breeze, and those little leaves flow down the valleys of the roof and settle in the corners. But they are easily gotten with the leaf blower out the window lol.

When we got the new roof and gutters this year, during the tear-off the old gutters didn’t look too bad under the screen. We had guards put on again.

In general, the gutter guards mean you might not have to clean them every year, or every two years, or, as happens around here, six times a year. DH goes up maybe once a year just to take a look at what he can’t see from the ground.

We do wish, though, that the lip of the frame that holds them in place was on the underside, not the top, as sometimes stuff gets stuck in between.

Life is short enough as it is, without needlessly doing things that risk shortening its duration. Going up ladders to the height of a roof can be quite dangerous. So too walking on a roof and leaning over the edge as some gutter cleaning jobs require. I don't feel I'm being callous or hypocritical asking someone else to do that - if that's how they want to earn money, it's their choice and I'm happy to pay for the service.

People die and get paralyzed every year by falling from ladders and from roofs. I don't want to become a stat like that.

" There is one company that forms the system on site. "

I think this is more typical than unusual for how gutters are made these days. There's mobile machinery the gutter people bring with them to do the custom fabrication. I believe that's not the case for copper gutters.

I've had gutter guards for years that work great (mostly because my old house has a standing seam metal roof, less shingle debris to enter gutters), only parts that clog are the tops of the down spouts. Maple tree nearby sends stuff into them and sparrows somehow build nests too close, under the eaves.

Used to be gutter cleaners were fairly common around here, now days they only want to install the gutters and guards. Some Amish will still come out, but it's not cheap anymore either. The back of the house is steep.

We have a lot of helicopters that come off all the Maples around us and fill the gutters. I guess I was expecting that if we put the gutter guards on we were not going to get anything in them any more. I guess that's not the case? Is there one system that is better than another? The solid cover wtih the rolled edge, or some kind of screen? Is there another type?

I won't let DH climb the ladder any more as his sense of balance isn't that good, so I climb the ladder to clean the gutters. Eventually we'll have to hire someone. Won't help you, porkchop, but I have a long-handled narrow (5"?) rake that I use to rake out the gutters so I don't have to climb the ladder or move it that often to clean them. The front of the house isn't so bad as it's only one story and underneath are plants and mulch. It's the barn gutter that scares me as it's higher and the footing is angled and half is on concrete. We purposely did not put gutters on the back of the house as they'd be 2 very high stories up. No thank you.

I don't see anyone ON a roof to clean gutters. Our ceilings are nine feet high, so the gutters are probabably ten feet off the ground. Nobody's balancing on our 10/12 roof, just climbing up ten feet on a ladder to reach into the gutter to pull debris out from between the gutter hangers. It's tiring going up and down, but doesn't involve the roof.

We pay $80 twice a year to have our gutters cleaned. Our landscapers do it.

A late, dear friend once said, "There are just some things in life that you are meant to pay OTHER people to do".

Make a phone call.

Our landscapers do it as well, partly via ladder to clean out a couple of areas where clogs develop at the top of downspouts, but also guys get up on the roof and blow debris out of the gutters from there.

Doesn't getting on the roof damage the roof?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on the roofing material, the house's structure, and how the roofing material was installed. There may be other factors too.

In my area, the code requires plywood sheathing (plywood sheets as an underlayment) under the entire roof. When a structure built before that rule became effective (that may have thin slats, as an example) gets reroofed, plywood sheathing needs to be installed first.

My roof was so retrofitted with sheathing before high profile composition shingles were installed. Replacing wood shingles. Wood shingles are not good to walk on, they can be split/cracked. A composition roof with plywood underneath is undamaged by limited foot traffic.

My yard maintenance person is a short, spidery guy. He walks the roof with his leaf blower and then lays down to pick out debris. He runs water from a hose for the small bits and to clear the downspouts.

Maybe I inaccurately assumed you all would get the gist of what I was asking for or maybe I should have been clearer: I'm looking for a tool you'd use from the ground. Some sort of doo-hickey on an extension pole or something. I can't fall off the ground....trip and fall onto it, yes, but not off of it...

See my post above. I do all of my gutter cleaning from the ground with the tools linked and no longer get on a ladder.

Gailan -- I saw that, yes thank you, along with recs from a couple other posters for what I'm looking for.

Many posters equated cleaning the gutters with climbing on roofs, falling off ladders, etc so I thought clarifying what I want to buy was in order.

Your comment said what you wanted to deal with was clogged gutters and that was why I recommended calling someone to do it. I have no personal experience clearing clogged gutters from below with your feet on terra firma but as the pros don't seem to do that, I'm not sure what you're thinking you could

As far as safety and risks are concerned, I was thinking of your husband too.

Good luck

porkchop, at least in the case of my house, it's not the lengths of the gutters themselves that are a problem to clear, it's the places where the gutters meet the downspouts and debris accumulates. You can't clear those clogs with a tool from the ground - you have to get up on a ladder, reach in, and remove the stuff.

You probably already Googled "tools to clean roof gutters", and I bet there are some good how-to videos out there. I get catalogs full of fun gadgets and Hammeracher Schlemmer (ha - sp?) gathers what they call the best in their catalogs. Pricey tho.

Was curious myself, so browsed online and one answer to cleaning gutters from the ground kept coming up: use an extension on your leaf blower. I didn't see a video demonstrating that, not sure there would be enough force to move wet debris?

First story DIY just using your hands and hose, second story call someone if your not comfortable. I think gutter guards will only delay inevitable and then make cleaning more difficult. Where I live dust is more the issue than leaves especially on second story. A thick layer of dust accumulates on the bottom of gutter and eventually clogs the downspout. I can see weeds growing from the gutters of my neighbors. I think the dust comes from the roof and light rains dont fully wash the dust away.