Residential gutter cleaning in Flowery Branch, GA

The town has two distinct halves for anyone who cleans gutters. The old part is downtown: Main Street, the restored 1890s depot that now serves as a community center and museum, the caboose at the north end of the street, and the older houses on the blocks around them. Those homes have been standing under the same oaks long enough that the trees now reach well over the roof, and the gutters on them are frequently original or close to it. The new part is everything along Spout Springs Road toward I-985. Sterling on the Lake, the Newland community laid out west of Spout Springs Road around Looper Lake, is the largest, with sections like The Enclave, The Overlook, The Preserve, The Springs, and The Retreat for buyers 55 and over. The subdivisions on either side of it are the same era, 2000s through the current decade, with two-story homes on modest lots. What the newer neighborhoods share is pine. Loblolly pines were left standing at the edges of nearly every lot, and pine straw is the year-round filler of Flowery Branch gutters. Add the maples and oaks planted along the streets, now twenty years old and shedding in earnest, and the sweet gums that seed themselves in every unmowed corner, and a 2008 house can need cleaning as often as a 1958 one.

A two-story home in Sterling on the Lake or the subdivisions around it typically has four to six downspouts, and the ones at the back corners are the ones that plug. Pine straw washes into the drop outlet and catches at the first elbow, sweet gum balls lock it in place, and the gutter above fills and spills over the edge onto the patio. We test every downspout from the top with a hose, clear the first two as part of the cleaning, and charge $25 for each additional one that needs unclogging. A plug comes out with a snake or, if it is packed tight, by separating the elbow and clearing it by hand. The other thing we check is where the water lands. Many of the newer homes here have downspouts tied into black corrugated pipe that runs under the lawn to a pop-up emitter near the street or the property line. Those lines silt up, the emitters get buried under mulch or run over by a mower, and the downspout backs up from the bottom even though the gutter is clean. We run water into each buried line and watch for it at the far end. If a line is blocked we tell you, show you where it exits, and leave the choice of digging it out or rerouting to a surface extension to you. On the sloped lots down toward the lake, getting water away from the foundation is the whole reason the gutters exist.

Pine straw is the reason Flowery Branch gutters cannot be a once-a-year job. The spring cleaning belongs in late March or April, once the heavy pollen has rinsed off and before thunderstorm season, and the fall cleaning in late November or early December after the maples, oaks, and sweet gums have dropped. Between those, a mid-summer visit clears the straw and the storm-blown twigs that would otherwise seed the fall clog early. Homes on the lake, or backed up to a stand of pines, are the ones that most need that third visit. After a bad storm, our after-storm service from $249 gets priority scheduling and focuses on getting the water flowing again the same day where we can. The bi-annual plan covers spring and fall for a set yearly price and puts you on the calendar ahead of the rush, which in south Hall County starts as soon as the first cold front turns the maples. If you have just bought a house in one of the newer subdivisions and are not sure when the gutters were last touched, our $79 inspection gives you a written report with photos and an honest answer about whether they need a cleaning now or can wait for the next season.