gutter cleaning
Why Clean Your Gutters Before Winter
Clogged gutters freeze and pull away from the house. Here is what ice does to a full gutter in Toronto and when to clean before the freeze.
Clean your gutters before winter because water that cannot drain will freeze in place. That ice pushes on the gutter, the fascia and the edge of the roof, and the damage starts there.
What a full gutter does when it freezes
Leaves and seeds sit in the trough and hold water. When the temperature drops overnight, that water turns to ice. A gutter full of ice is heavy, and it can bend brackets and pull the whole run away from the house.
In Toronto the freeze and thaw cycle repeats all winter. Ice forms, melts a little, then freezes again. A small problem in November has months to get worse.
Ice on the eaves
When a gutter is blocked, melting snow from the roof has nowhere to go. It backs up under the first row of shingles and freezes there. From there it can find its way into the soffit, the wall or a ceiling.
A blocked gutter is not the only cause of ice on the eaves. Heat escaping from the attic matters too. But a clear gutter takes one cause off the list.
Downspouts freeze first
A downspout packed with leaves holds water at the bottom, where it freezes solid. It stays that way until a real thaw. Meanwhile water spills over the side, lands by the foundation or on the walkway, and turns into an ice patch.
When to do it
Maple and oak leaves keep coming down from late October into November. Clean after most of them have fallen and before the first hard freeze. If you go too early, new leaves fill the gutter again. If you wait until it snows, the debris is frozen in and the ladder is slippery.
For most Toronto homes that means the first half of November, give or take the weather and the trees.
Fix the small stuff while you are up there
A loose screw, a sagging section or a joint that leaks is easy to fix in the fall. After the first load of ice, it can become a gutter that needs to be replaced. Looking at the whole run while it is clear is part of the job.
What happens if you skip it
Not every home with dirty gutters has a problem the first winter. But the risk grows each year the debris stays. Rot in the fascia board, stains on the wall and a sagging run are all easier to prevent than to repair.
Skipping the fall clean also means doing a bigger, wetter job in spring, when the leaves have turned into heavy, dark sludge.
Why not wait for spring
Some people plan to clean once the snow is gone. By then the damage from a winter of ice is already done, and the leaves have packed down into a heavy mat that is harder to lift.
What we do
- 1
We remove all the debris.
- 2
We flush the gutters and the downspouts.
- 3
We do minor repairs on the spot for free, like popping loose screws back in.