Gutter Cleaning — Hoddle Street, Elsternwick

Eighty metres of guttering on a long single-storey house had filled with compacted debris, and the downpipes were blocked with soil rather than loose leaf litter. Packed soil holds water instead of letting it drain, so the gutters stayed wet between storms and overflowed at the outlets during heavy rain. On a terracotta tile roof that spill runs back under the tile edge and along the fascia, where it goes unnoticed until timber and plaster start to show damage.

The roof sat high, so the full run was cleared from the ground with SkyVac gutter vacuum equipment rather than working off the tiles. Terracotta tiles crack under foot traffic, and vacuum extraction also lifts debris straight out instead of scraping it along the gutter base or dropping it around the house. Each downpipe was then opened, the packed soil pulled out and the line flushed with a garden hose to confirm it ran clear.

• Cleared approximately 80 metres of guttering on a single-storey terracotta tile roof
• Vacuum extraction from ground level using SkyVac equipment, no access onto the tiles
• Removed compacted soil from blocked downpipes
• Flushed downpipes with a garden hose and checked flow

• Full 80 metre gutter run clear and draining
• Downpipes flowing freely after flushing
• Completed in three hours by one technician with no access onto the terracotta tiles