Residential gutter cleaning in Gainesville, GA

Start downtown. The Green Street and Brenau historic district runs about half a mile along Green Street and the side streets around it, Candler, Park, and Brenau, and the houses there date from the late 1800s into the early 1900s. They have tall roofs, long gutter runs, and the oldest shade trees in Hall County standing over them. The magnolias and white oaks on those lots drop leaves that are thick and slow to rot, and a magnolia leaf in particular lies flat across the gutter like a lid. Just north, Bradford-Ridgewood and the other post-war streets between downtown and the Lake Lanier trails are smaller homes on lots that have grown big oaks and pines since. Four miles south, Chicopee was laid out in 1927 as a planned mill village, and its brick cottages have modest rooflines but mature trees and, in many cases, gutters that have been patched for decades. Then there is the lake side. Cresswind at Lake Lanier, the 55+ community off Browns Bridge Road in 30504, and the subdivisions around McEver Road and Mundy Mill Road are newer construction with younger trees, but wind across Lanier carries leaves and needles well beyond the shoreline lots. Pines, oaks, hickories, and sweet gums are everywhere in Hall County, and the mix on your own lot decides what we pull out of your gutters.

Gainesville sits on the same red clay as the rest of North Georgia, and clay does not absorb a downspout's worth of water in a hurry. When a downspout is blocked and the gutter spills over, the water lands beside the foundation and stays there. On an older in-town house with a crawl space, that shows up as damp and musty air under the floor. On a newer lake home with a finished basement, it shows up as a wet corner of carpet. So every cleaning includes testing and clearing the first two downspouts, with any beyond that at $25 each. We run water from the top and, if it backs up, break the clog loose with a snake or pull the elbow apart and dig it out. Magnolia leaves and sweet gum balls are the common plugs here, with pine straw binding them together. Once it flows, we look at the discharge. Downspouts on the historic houses often end in a short elbow a few inches from the foundation, which was fine when the yard graded away and is not fine now that it has settled. We will suggest an extension or a splash block where one is missing. Where a downspout feeds a buried drain, we test whether the line is actually carrying water away, and tell you if it is not.

Two visits a year keep most Gainesville gutters out of trouble. The spring one belongs in late March or April, after the pine pollen has rinsed off and before the May thunderstorms, and the fall one in late November or early December, once the oaks, poplars, and sweet gums have finished. Homes under big in-town hardwoods, the Green Street houses and the older streets north of downtown in particular, drop so much leaf in October and November that a single fall visit sometimes comes too early or too late; for those we suggest scheduling toward the end of the drop. Lake homes under pine and lakeside wind do well with a third visit in summer. Our after-storm service starts at $249 for the days when a storm has left gutters spilling and the forecast shows more coming. The bi-annual plan covers spring and fall for a set yearly price and puts you on the calendar before the seasonal rush, which in Hall County starts the first week the leaves turn. If you are not sure what your gutters need, our $79 inspection gives you a written report with photos and a plain recommendation.