Now's the time to prepare your gutters for the winter. We'll show you our favorite (and easiest!) way to clean the gutters.
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Family Handyman
Winterize Your Gutters
When gutters fill with leaves, sticks and other debris, this can cause clogs and result in water creeping under the roof and sometimes, into the foundation. Clogged gutters can also lead to ice dams in the winter. That’s why it’s important to be cleaning out your gutters every so often.
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The Best Way to Clean Your Gutters:
An old plastic spatula makes a great tool for cleaning debris from gutters! It doesn’t scratch up the gutter, and you can cut it to fit gutter contours with snips. Grime wipes right off the spatula too, making cleanup a breeze. Your plumber’s snake is a great tool for pulling clumps of wet leaves out of clogged downspouts.
You should clean your gutters at a minimum of once a year and you should do it more often if you have overhanging trees and after a big storm.
Make Cleanup Easier:
To make cleanup easier, spread a tarp underneath your workspace to collect all the gutter gunk and protect your lawn and landscaping. Once you’ve removed the debris from the gutters, use a garden hose to flush the gutters and downspouts and clear out any remaining debris. This will also show you if you have any leaks. Need to replace your gutters? Here’s how to install them.
Set aside some time now to complete these simple fall maintenance tasks so you can rest easy, knowing you’re prepared.
Check out our five favorite gutter cleaning tools:
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Clean Your Gutters for Fall
Cleaning your gutters is one of the most important chores around the home that you need to do at least once every year, especially with trees shedding their leaves for fall. Keeping crud from clogging up your gutters helps prevent water damage to the siding and your yard. Most importantly, it prevents damage to the foundation, which can be a nightmare for any homeowner. If you don't want to pay to have your gutters cleaned, it's a relatively straight forward job that you can do in a day, depending on the size of your home. These products will help make cleaning out your gutters snap. Don't forget, you'll also need some basic tools for the job, like a ladder, gloves, a bucket and gloves.
For blasting leaves, dirt and other gunk out of your gutters, you need the Ezy Flo Deluxe high-reach gutter cleaning kit. Just attach this to your pressure washer to make clearing gutters from the ground super simple. Plus, the scrubber attachment gets every nook and cranny clean.
Have you ever heard of a gutter cleaning robot? Yep, it exists!
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The snap-in mesh of these gutter guards makes keeping junk out of your gutters really simple. And that means less cleaning throughout the year! Learn everything you need to know about installing gutter guards yourself.
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You can easily blast your gutters clean with your blower and these handy extensions. The attachments are easy to put together and fit most major brands of gas and electric blowers. Plus, the whole tool is very lightweight.
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This little helper not only looks cool, it cleans really well, too! Attach the high-pressure rocket nozzle to your standard garden hose and push it though your gutters and downspouts. It drives leaves and debris through, releasing clogs in no time. Follow these steps if you are looking to do gutter cleaning the old-fashioned way.
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