Gutter Cleaning — Barkly Street, St Kilda

Compacted debris behaves differently from fresh leaf fall. It holds water, adds weight to the brackets and has to be broken up before it can be extracted. Through a Melbourne winter it overflows steadily rather than dramatically, which is why damage usually shows on the walls first.

Seventy metres is a long contour for one visit, so the runs were worked in sections with a vacuum pole from ground level. Downpipes were inspected and cleared one at a time, since compacted debris tends to have already migrated into the outlets. The crew finished with a system-wide check that water ran freely from every run.

• Compacted debris mat broken up and vacuumed out
• All accessible gutter runs cleared
• Downpipes inspected and cleared one at a time
• Loose material removed from roof edges
• System-wide check of water flow from every run
• Before and after photo report sent to the client

• Free drainage restored across the whole system
• Weight of waterlogged debris taken off the gutter brackets
• Outlets cleared of migrated material
• Property better protected through the wet season