You may not realize it, but rain gutter cleaning is one of the most important things you can do to help protect the value of your home. Cleaning rain gutters probably doesn’t seem like something that can have a major impact on your home, but it actually can. Those gutters and downspouts that you see attached to the roof of your home might be decorative, but they also serve a very important function.
They are there to control one of the most powerful forces in all of nature, running water. Running water carves into mountains and over time actually transforms the landscape that it flows across. When you think about how running water has influenced the way that the surface of our planet looks, you should quickly realize that it can also be a very destructive force. It can be a force that causes enormous harm to your home, which can necessitate very expensive repairs.
Rain Gutters Are Often an Overlooked Part of Home Maintenance
Cleaning rain gutters are one of the simplest and least expensive things you should be doing in regards to home maintenance, and it’s also quite inexpensive as well. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the things that are most frequently neglected in a home.
Why are rain gutters so frequently ignored? Well, it’s often because they are simply forgotten about. When your rain gutters are doing their job you probably won’t notice them much at all. But, when they stop doing their job then you are going to be reminded of just how important they are.
If you are lucky, and you have neglected roof gutter cleaning for far too long, your gutters will start to leak noticeably right away. Why would your gutters leaking or even failing right away be a good thing? It’s because it would alert you to the fact that there is a problem you need to address.
If you don’t know that there is a problem with your rain gutters, and this results in water seeping into your home undetected, then this is a recipe for disaster. Water that gets into your home will damage the structure of your home, and it will also result in toxic black mold growing in your home. Obviously, this is not something you want to have to deal with it.
Gutter Guards Are Not the Answer
Obviously, you need to keep your rain gutters and downspouts clear so that they can do their job. But, how can you do this? One of the solutions that people often turn to is gutter guards or something similar that is supposed to work as a barrier that keeps debris from getting into your rain gutters.
If you are interested in finding the best gutter guards you need to spend a lot of time researching them. Once you do you’ll probably realize that looking for the best gutter guards is a waste of time because they don’t exist. Gutter guards don’t work, it really is that simple.
Attempting Eavestrough Cleaning Yourself Is Also Not A Good Idea
So, gutter guards are not the answer to keeping your gutters clean. What about cleaning your gutters and downspouts yourself? Well, this isn’t a good idea either. Is it a better idea than doing nothing? Of course, it is. Is it a better idea than wasting money on gutter guards? It’s a better idea than that too. But is it the best approach you should take when you are looking to keep your gutters and downspouts clean and in good working condition? No, it’s not.
First off, cleaning your gutters isn’t an easy job. You have to work on top of a ladder, which means that there’s always a chance of slipping and falling. You also have to climb up and down that ladder repeatedly while carrying a bucket full of nasty muck.
Once more, the chances of falling here are very real. Even if you don’t end up having an accident while you are doing your own rain gutter cleaning, it’s still not the way that most people would like to spend their free time.
On top of the risk of injury and the fact that roof gutter cleaning is a hard and dirty job, chances are pretty good that you won’t be able to do the job as good as a professional would. Professional rain gutter cleaning companies employ technicians that undergo a lot of training to ensure that they know what they are doing.
They are also given access to equipment like high-powered water sprayers that can clean out even the thickest buildup of muck and debris. If there is a blockage they are capable of removing it. The point here is that unsurprisingly a professional gutter cleaning company is likely going to do a better job than you could ever hope to.
Another major benefit that most people don’t consider when they are debating whether or not to hire a professional for eavestrough cleaning is the fact that professionals are trained to look for problems while they are doing their jobs.
They inspect your rain gutters as they clean them, and their trained eyes are capable of spotting problems that the average person wouldn’t even notice. They can then either repair the problem or if it’s too extensive to do on their own they can inform you so that you can hire another company to handle the repairs for you.
Should You Hire A Handyman for Your Roof Gutter Cleaning Needs?
You’ve now hopefully realized that cleaning your own gutters isn’t a good idea. Hopefully, you also realize that gutter guards are also not the best idea. That leaves you with one last option, and that’s hiring someone to clean your gutters for you.
One option that you may be considering is hiring a handyman or handyman service to handle cleaning your rain gutters for you. If this is an option you are considering, then do yourself a favor and don’t make the mistake of following through with this option. Hiring a handyman for rain gutter cleaning is never a good idea.
The main reason that people consider hiring a handyman for roof gutter cleaning is that they think it’s going to save them money. Will it cost you less money to hire a handyman than it would hire a professional gutter cleaning company? It probably will, but why do you think that is? It’s because you are paying for a service level that in all likelihood will be less than the service level provided by a professional company.
Is a handyman going to take the time, or have the ability, to notice any areas of concern while they are cleaning your gutters? They might, but there’s also a very good chance that they don’t. If they aren’t able to spot small problems, then those small problems are going to become bigger problems. Which is going to mean spending more money on repairs.
So, if you really think about it attempting to save money by hiring a handyman to clean your gutters can actually end up costing you even more money.
A Professional Rain Gutter Cleaning Company Is the Way to Go
When it comes to properly taking care of your rain gutters and downspouts the only real option you should be considering is hiring a professional company to do it for you. The gutters on your house are important, without them you are risking what could turn out to be very expensive repairs due to water damage. Water can damage the structural integrity of your home, it can cause a toxic black mold infestation, and it can even damage the very foundation that your home is built on.
A professional gutter cleaning company will have the expertise that it takes to do what on the surface seems like a simple job but is in fact much more complex than it appears. Just about anybody can climb on top of a ladder and spray out rain gutters with a water hose. But, in order to clean them out to the point where they are like new again, that takes the skill of an expert.
A professional will clean out your gutters by hand, then use a special high-pressure water sprayer to clean out any additional debris that is left behind. They will also clean out your downspouts and inspect your gutters for any structural damage that could become a problem down the road. The level of service you receive from a professional roof gutter cleaning company is much higher than any handyman could ever hope to provide to you.
How Can You Choose the Right Gutter Cleaning Company?
By now you probably understand the importance of only hiring a professional gutter cleaning company to work on your home. But, with so many gutter cleaning companies out there how can you hope to find one that you know will do a good job for you? The last thing you want is to spend some of your hard-earned money on a gutter cleaning company and then have them do a poor job. What you want is a company that is reputable that you can trust, so how do you find a company that meets these criteria?
The first step in the process should involve ensuring that any gutter cleaning company you are considering is licensed, bonded, and insured. This is a standard that you can’t afford to compromise on. If you hire a company that claims that they are a professional gutter cleaning company, but they are not licensed and insured, then you have basically just hired a handyman.
If a company doesn’t care about what they do enough to get the proper licensing and insurance, is that a company you want to trust to do any work on your house? Probably not.
A rain gutter cleaning company that is licensed, bonded, and insured will generally go above and beyond to make their customers happy because their reputation depends on it. The last thing that they want to have happened is to have a customer of theirs file a complaint with the registrar of contractors about them. This is public knowledge that is easy to obtain, so you should look into whether or not the gutter cleaning company you are considering has any complaints registered against them.
The point here is that a professional company doesn’t want anything negative said about them because it will hurt their future business prospects, so you can generally trust them to do a good job for you.
What happens if you hire a handyman for rain gutter cleaning and they don’t do a good job? Well, you can hope they will come out and make things right, but the reality is that you don’t have many options available to you if they refuse. On the other hand, when you hire a professional gutter cleaning company they are going to be more likely to do the job right in the first place.
If they don’t, then in most cases they are going to be more than happy to come out and make things right to avoid any negative comments being made about them. If they still aren’t willing to come out and fix things, then you simply file a complaint with the registrar of contractors and you can usually get your money back without much of a problem.
Another area you should be concerned with whenever you allow anyone to do any kind of work to your home, including rain gutter cleaning, is what happens if they are injured or damage your home? Once again, if you hire a handyman or someone else that is not licensed, bonded, and insured, then you could be looking at some serious money coming out of your pocket.
Just take a moment to think about how much medical bills can be if someone were to fall off of a ladder, break a leg, and then file a lawsuit against you. Then think about how expensive it can be to repair rain gutters that have been damaged by someone who was trying to clean them and didn’t really know what they were doing. The point here is that the smart move is always going to be to hire a licensed, bonded, and insured professional to clean your gutters.
