Gutter cleaning in Tampa

What a cleaning includes

• Every foot of gutter cleared by hand, not blown into the pool or the flower beds
• Downspouts flushed with a hose and checked for flow at the bottom
• Debris bagged and taken away
• A ladder look at corners, seams, hangers and fascia, with photos of anything that needs attention
• Splash blocks and extensions put back where the mower moved them

The flush matters more than the scoop. A downspout plugged with a season of pine needles and a tennis ball backs up a perfectly clean gutter, and you find out during the first storm of June when it comes over the lip onto the lanai.

When to clean gutters in Tampa

Tampa's leaf calendar runs backwards from most of the country. Late May is the important visit: the live oaks finished dropping catkins and old leaves in March and April, and the first inch-an-hour storm arrives in early June. February or March is the second, once the oaks have dropped and before the catkins come. Homes under pines or bald cypress need a third look in November and December. Homes with good guards need one rinse a year. The fall gutter guide has the tree-by-tree calendar, and the storm-season checklist is the ten-minute walk-around between visits.

Pricing

Cleaning is priced by the house, not the hour. Single-story homes run $120–$200, two-story $180–$300, and large or complicated roofs are quoted after we see them. If we find a repair while we are up there, the cleaning fee comes off the repair. The inspection photos are free, and there is no upsell: if the gutters are fine, we say so and leave.

Cleaning that turns into a repair

Roughly one cleaning in four turns up something. In order of how often we see it: a downspout elbow that has separated, a corner weeping on the sunny side of the house, hangers backed out or rusted through on a long run, and soft fascia under a corner that has overflowed for years. You get a photo and a price on the spot, and the estimate holds for 30 days. All of it is on the gutter repair page with prices.

What a cleaning will not fix

A clean gutter that still overflows is pitched wrong or too small. We will tell you which, but the cleaning does not change it. And a clean gutter under a big live oak in Palma Ceia or the Old Northeast will be full again by April. If we are cleaning the same runs twice a year and the trees are staying, we will suggest gutter guards, not as a pitch but because the arithmetic starts favoring them around year six.

Doing it yourself

Single-story block ranch, a good ladder, someone holding it: go ahead. Gloves, a bucket hooked to the ladder, and flush each downspout from the top. Stop if the ladder has to lean on the gutter (it will crush it), if you would be reaching more than an arm's length sideways, if the roof is two stories, or if a pool cage is in the way. We get plenty of gutter cleaning Tampa calls in May from people who got halfway around and thought better of it. The second half costs the same as the whole.

Cleaning near the water

On homes in Davis Islands, Bayshore, Shore Acres or Clearwater Beach we spend an extra few minutes on the hangers. Salt air eats plain steel screws and spikes long before the aluminum shows anything, and a gutter with three rusted hangers in a row will come down in the next tropical storm. We photograph them and quote stainless replacements, which is a small job now and a big one after the wind.