Cleaning out the gutters is a necessary job for any homeowner. Gutter maintenance ensures the longevity of your gutter system. Furthermore, learning how to clean gutters without a ladder can make this unappealing task much easier.
While cleaning your gutters is a necessary task, it’s important to do it safely. Cleaning gutters from the ground or hiring professional gutter cleaners can help ensure your home stays protected and you stay safe. In this guide to how to clean gutters from the ground, we cover:
Asher Lasting Exteriors’ Gutter Helmet helps provide hassle-free gutter care.
Gutter guards can help reduce the need for blowing or washing out debris from your gutters.
Gutter guards require almost no upkeep and safely protect your home.
- The Challenges Of Cleaning Gutters From The Ground
- How To Clean High Gutters Without A Ladder
- Top Tools For How To Clean Gutters From The Ground
- Cost Comparison: Traditional vs. Ground-Based Gutter Cleaning
- Safety First: Tips For Cleaning Gutters Without Risks
Asher Lasting Exteriors’ Gutter Helmet helps provide hassle-free gutter care.
The Challenges Of Cleaning Gutters From The Ground
While learning how to clean out gutters without a ladder can help keep your home protected, there are various difficulties to cleaning them out this way. The main challenges that you may experience when finding the best way to clean gutters without a ladder include:- Limited Reach: Most notably, cleaning gutters from the ground limits your reach. Without the added height of a ladder, reaching all the areas you need to is much more difficult.
- Limited Visibility: It’s also challenging to fully see what you’re cleaning when working from the ground.
- Potential for Incomplete Cleaning: Limited visibility also leads to the potential for incomplete cleaning, potentially leading to overflowing gutters much faster than normal.
- May Injure Yourself: Looking to remove debris from gutters while on the ground can still potentially cause you to injure yourself.
How To Clean High Gutters Without A Ladder
Despite the potential challenges of how to get leaves out of gutters without a ladder, it is still often much safer this way than climbing up yourself. Some of the most popular and safe ways how to clean high gutters include:Installing a Gutter Guard Like Gutter Helmet®
Gutter guards provide multiple benefits for the upkeep of your home. Guards like Gutter Helmet® can reduce the frequency and intensity of needing to clean your gutters. These protective guards go over your gutters to keep dry leaves and other debris out while still allowing the gutters to work as intended. This can help reduce the struggle of frequently cleaning your gutters from the ground or up on a ladder. Asher Lasting Exteriors and our seamless gutters, Helmet Heat, and other tools can help keep your home protected for years to come.Blow Out Debris
Blowing out debris with a leaf blower or other specialized attachment, such as a gutter vacuum or a wet/dry extension to your vacuum, is often the easiest way to clean gutters from the ground. This method is very effective, especially for taking care of seasonal leaf buildup and other lightweight obstructions that may blow into your gutters. While the leaf blower method will still necessitate cleaning up the debris once it is out of your gutters, it’s still the easiest way to clean gutters without a ladder for many people, as most everyone has a leaf blower already on hand.Wash Out Debris
Another one of the tools to clean gutters without a ladder is washing out the debris with a power washer. Power washers provide a strong stream of water that regular garden hoses usually can’t take advantage of. Washing out debris with this method can help you tackle loose and stuck debris that has built up. However, just make sure that you’re careful that you don’t damage your house or gutters with this method. Washing out your gutters with this method often requires that you:- Buy the right wand attachment
- Wear a rain jacket, or at least expect to get wet
- Go slowly and methodically to ensure that you don’t cause water overflow
Gutter guards can help reduce the need for blowing or washing out debris from your gutters.
Top Tools For How To Clean Gutters From The Ground
As mentioned above, various gutter cleaning tools can be bought or DIYed to help you find the best way to clean gutters without a ladder. However, many of these DIY tools may not be safe or can cause harm to your home or gutters. It’s important to keep this in mind and know that hiring professional gutter cleaners is the safest option for both you and your home. If hiring professionals isn’t in the budget, utilizing some of these tools for your gutter cleaning can help as well:- Gutter Tongs: These tongs come on a long pole that allow you to cut out the debris in your gutters. This doesn’t always work well for wet or severely built-up debris but can be helpful in other situations.
- Gutter Filter: These filters are another type of gutter guard that has mesh on the top. This helps prevent the frequency of cleanings but still requires installation.
- Gutter Flusher: These flushers are attachments for hoses. While they don’t provide many ways for you to direct the stream, they’re still able to reach up to your roof without issue.
Cost Comparison: Traditional vs. Ground-Based Gutter Cleaning
The cost comparison between traditional and ground-based gutter cleaning can vary depending on where you live, the state your gutters are in, and various other factors. While DIY options such as those listed above may seem the cheapest – for example, the average cost of a leaf blower is around $150-200 – you can easily create further damage to your home or gutters if it’s not done correctly. There are also hidden costs, such as:- Making sure you get the right hose extension
- Needing to invest in other equipment
- Taking the time and energy to do the task safely
Gutter guards require almost no upkeep and safely protect your home.
Safety First: How to Clean My Gutters Without a Ladder
The best way to clean gutters from the ground is to ensure that you do it safely. Any home maintenance task may prove dangerous in some way, and the same is true for cleaning your gutters, even if you don’t climb up on a ladder. Some tips to help make sure you protect yourself and your property during the cleaning process include:- Wearing goggles or other protective gear
- Investing in the right tools, as some extensions may cause harm to your home if not used properly
- Ensuring that you have someone to help, especially if you end up climbing up on a ladder to check the progress of your cleaning
- Calling a professional team to clean your gutters
