Gutter Cleaning for Every Kind of Nanaimo Property

The tallest wall

The street side rarely gives the answer. Nanaimo is a hilly city, and a lot of houses that look like a single storey from the road open up into two or three storeys at the back, with a deck, a patio or a steep bank underneath. The rear gutter on those houses can be twice the height of the front one, and it is the rear gutter that decides what equipment we bring and how long the job takes.

A rancher on a level lot is simpler: one height all the way round, with a stand-off on the ladder to keep its weight off the gutter lip. Two-storey family homes in the newer subdivisions are mostly straightforward too, provided the side yards are wide enough. Strata buildings and commercial blocks are a different scale again, with long runs at a steady height and a lot of linear metres to cover.

Trees over the roof

This part of the island sits in the Coastal Douglas-fir zone. Fir and western red cedar drop needles and flat sprays through the year, and once wet they knit into a mat that holds water and grows moss. Bigleaf maple adds broad leaves and seed keys in October and November. Near the water, around places like Neck Point, arbutus sheds leaves and curls of bark in the summer, so those gutters fill when most others are sitting quiet.

Property type changes the mix. Houses backing onto a greenbelt or the wooded slopes toward Mount Benson take the heaviest load. Open subdivision lots collect mostly roof grit and the odd leaf blown in from down the street. Plazas often have maples planted in the parking islands, and those leaves end up along the shop gutters every fall.

Where the ladder stands

A ladder needs firm, level footing and a safe angle. Narrow side yards, rockeries, raised beds, fences on the property line and decks built right to the wall all limit where it can go. On waterfront lots the seaward side can drop away toward a bank. We find each footing before we start, and where a stretch cannot be reached safely we use extension tools from below or tell you straight that it is out of reach.

Townhouse and strata sites add patios, privacy screens and parking stalls. Commercial buildings add entrances, loading doors and people walking underneath. Each gets its own set-up plan.

Where the downspouts drain

In most of the city, downspouts drop into a pipe in the ground that runs to a perimeter drain or the storm system. On larger rural lots in Cedar or Lantzville, the downspouts may empty onto a splash pad, run a long way across the yard, or feed a buried line. We flush every downspout and watch what happens at the base. If a buried pipe will not take the water, we tell you where it backed up. Clearing underground lines is not something we do, so you will know what to ask a drainage contractor about. More on that path is on our gutter and downspout cleaning page.

Who signs off

For a house, it is you. For a rental, it is often an owner who lives elsewhere and wants to hear back once the job is done. On a strata, the gutters are usually common property, so the council or the property manager books the visit and receives our findings. On a commercial building, it might be the landlord, the tenant or a manager looking after several properties. We find out at the start who signs off, because that is who gets the quote and the follow-up. Our strata, townhouse and commercial pages go into each arrangement.

The part that never changes

Whatever the property, the finish is the same. Wet mats and sludge come out by hand, everything goes into bags and leaves in our truck, and each downspout gets flushed until water runs freely out the bottom. If we spot a bent hanger, a weeping seam or a soft patch of fascia along the way, we point it out and leave the decision with you.

We have spent more than ten years on Vancouver Island rooflines. We are insured and WCB-registered, the work carries our guarantee, and the quote is free. Tell us what kind of building you have and how tall the back of it is, and we will plan from there.