We’ve noticed that most people don’t like gutter cleaning. As a task, it ranks somewhere below weeding the yard and above getting a root canal or swimming with sharks.
Like it or not, gutter cleaning is a must-do. To inspire you to tackle the task, we’ve compiled a list of famous quotes about gutter cleaning:
- “Do or do not. There is no try in gutter cleaning” -Yoda
- “If you’re going through hell while gutter cleaning, keep going.” -Winston Churchill
- “Energy and persistence conquer all things, including gutter cleaning.” -Benjamin Franklin
- “At the end of the day, we can endure much more gutter cleaning than we think we can.” -Frida Kahlo
- “Real integrity is doing your gutter cleaning, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” -Oprah Winfrey
All joking aside, gutter cleaning is an essential part of proper home maintenance. In this article, you’ll learn why gutter cleaning is so important, and how to clean your gutters safely and easily.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CLEANING YOUR GUTTERS
Your gutters have a single and important job: to keep water away from your home and its foundation. They catch all the water coming off your roof in rainstorms and channel it away, preventing damage.
What prevents gutters from doing this job? Muck, leaves, and other debris clogging them up! When you don’t clean your gutters, the debris inside them builds up. Standing and overflowing water then pools next to your home.
Let’s go back to inspirational quotes for a moment. Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and this applies as much to gutter cleaning as it does to human health (which is what Franklin was referring to). Preventing costly water damage to your foundation, roof, and landscaping is much better than paying for thousands of dollars in costly repairs.
When clogged gutters prevent water from flowing away from your home, it can cause:
- Seepage in and around your home’s foundation
- Water damage and flooding in your basement
- Mold and mildew in the gutters, walls, and basement
- Water damage and rotting wood in the fascia and soffit boards of your home
- Roof leaks and damage
- Insect and pest infestations, in the gutters and inside your home
- Damage to your landscape
Routine gutter cleaning and maintenance prevent these problems in the first place. The key is to create and stick to a schedule. It’s best to clean your gutters at least twice annually, once in the early spring and once in the late fall, after most of the leaves have fallen.
HOW TO CLEAN YOUR GUTTERS
The traditional approach to gutter cleaning is dangerous and messy. Most people use a ladder to reach second-story gutters and a hose or gutter-cleaning extension to flush out the gutters.
There are problems with this method, though. First, it’s very dangerous. Over half a million people a year are injured in ladder-related accidents and injuries, most of them at home. It’s easy to see how: you’re up there holding a hose or a bucket, and you lose your balance.
Traditional gutter cleaning is very messy, too. You’re reaching in there to scoop out muck, and it gets everywhere, and you might cut your hands on a screw or sharp edge inside the gutter…and you get the point. Back to the top—this is why gutter cleaning ranks low on everyone’s list of a fun way to spend a weekend morning.
SAFER, EASIER GUTTER CLEANING
Safety first: there’s a better, easier, safer way to clean gutters with Gutter Sense, a lightweight tool that attaches to an extension pole and can be used to clean second-story gutters from the ground. Using a pair of lightweight, angled tongs, you can reach inside the gutter, scoop out the mess, and drop it on the ground. No more ladders, no more painful cuts, no more mess—just a clean, easy, safe way to clean rain gutters from the ground. Best of all, it’s under $30, far less than a gutter cleaning service or handyman will cost you.
It’s so easy that anyone can use it—meaning you can use our soaring quotes about gutter cleaning to inspire your teenager or spouse to tackle the job, too.