Gutter Cleaning in Alexandria Virginia is an important yearly maintenance service that many homeowners ignore until their gutters and downspouts are completely clogged and water is constantly splitting over the side making their gutters turn black and messing up your landscaping. Black gutters and mulch that is constantly being pushed around are the first signs of potential water damage to your home. Thats right, your gutters are not just for keeping water out if your garden or preventing you from having to walk through a waterfall to get into your house on rainy days. Your gutters and downspouts are for collecting rain water and directing it away from your house to protect your roof, foundations and basement. Gutter Cleaning near me in Alexandria, Burke, and Fairfax Virginia seems like a year round affair with so many homes surrounded by tall trees. Our most popular time of year for service our fall gutter cleaning that started form November to Mid December. We work 7 days a week from 9am - 7pm to keep up with demand so we recommend booking your future appointment today.
Our gutter cleaning crew is experienced in safely performing exterior cleaning. We do not hire random contractors or teenagers, we use our same team of roof cleaners with years of experience under their belt working on tall ladders. For any jobs above 1 story we will send a two man team for safely and efficiently. Once the gutters have been cleaned if needed we can flush your downspouts using our high water machine pushing 8 gallons a minute to purge any suborn debris clinging to the walls of your downspouts. Any debris that may have fallen into your yard will be picked up and you'll be given both a hardcopy and email invoice. We accept both credit cards and checks so please chose whichever is most convenient for you.
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2019 Gutter Cleaning Prices and Sign Up
* Please select the type of home that best represents your house in the form below. If you're not sure the you may select "other" on the form.
Small Home: $90
3000 - 4000 sq.ft House $125 - $175
2 Story Mid Size Home: $105
3000 - 4000 sq.ft / Hip Roof $125 - $200
4000 - 5000 sq.ft House $225 - $300
4000 - 5000 sq.ft / Hip Roof $ 225 - $325
* Once you fill out the form below our customer service staff will reply back to you with a price quote and to confirm your information.
* If you're booking an appoint for later in the year you will receive a reminder 48 hours prior to your service by either text or email.
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Higher a Professional Gutter Cleaning Service
Gutters and downspouts are added to homes for one simple reason. To stop water from slowly eating your house. For a lot of homeowners having gutters that are clogged with black stains on them or having mud splashed onto the bottom of their foundation is a minor issue that is very low on their to do list for house maintenance. The problem is that those minor issue overtime can become major issues that cost $1000’s of dollars in repairs. Here is a list of the unintended consequences of not having your rain gutters cleaned constantly.
Why Gutter Cleaning in Alexandria is Important
Those black stains you see on the front of your gutter is called tiger striping and its a sign that water is flowing over the front lip staining it and creating an area for mildew to grow. The black strips are typically a mixture of pollution that has been oxidized and organic matter from your roof and gutter. If you live near a highway, power plant, or a construction site your roof and gutters will collect a higher concentration of pollutants. Once your gutters are clean and the risk of them overflowing has been reduced you can have the exterior of your Aluminum gutters washed to bring back their original shine.
Gutter Cleaning Companies Protect You From Water Damage
Now that we know the water is flowing over the front of the gutter because of the tigger strips it’s a safe bet that that same water is rolling over the back of the gutter onto your fascia board. Other than your roof shingles that fascia board is your homes next line of defense to protect your interior walls and roof from water damage. Once that wood starts to get wet it begins a slow cycles of destruction. The gutters that are trying to push water way from you fascia boards are also attached to them with nails or screws. As the wood that the gutter is attached to rots the gutter will separate from the board causing further wood rot. If that fascia board rots enough to start to separate from the soffits and roof rafters that can lead to major damage.
If water is allowed to flow behind your fascia board its next stop will be onto your soffits and it will begin to rot them from within if you have wood soffits with or without vents. Even if you have vinyl vented soffits you can still get damage if you don’t have a large roof overhang and water leak behind your interior walls. If you currently have gutters that are overflowing and your soffits are rotting our but your don’t have the time or money to replace them your should start by cutting some vent holes and instilling some aluminum air vents to help increase the air flow and allow moisture to escape. This will have an added benefit of helping your roof last longer by reducing the amount of moisture in the attic.
Gutter Repairs Cost More Than Gutter Cleaning
You may be familiar with a fascia boards and the damage that can be cause by a gutter overflowing on them but what you may not know is that those boards are nailed to your roofs rafter tails. Those rafter tails will absorb water like and sponge pulling the water damage back under your roof. Once the water is under your roofs plywood it will weaken the front ends of your roof. This combination of rotting wood and gutters filled with wet leafs and debris can create a hazards situation during heavy rain or during the winter with ice and snow.
Water weights 8.34 pound per gallon so imagine your rain gutter completely filled with water while being attach to rotten wood. If it freezes and the water backs up and it can form under your roof shingles and freeze your fascia and roof boards. The expansion and contraction of the water as it changes from liquid to ice cause even more damage. When we get heavy snow fall it will collect at the front of your roof causing the roof to flex under the weight creating further damage. To repair it you will need to remove your gutters, fascia, soffits, and the first few feet of roof shingles and plywood. Then you’ll need to cutout the rotten roof rafter, splice in new boards for the facia wood to attach to and attach a new gutter system and soffits.
Clogged Gutters and Downspouts Can Damage Your Home
When a clogged gutter overflows directly onto the foundation of your home it can cause way more damage than the few dirt or clay stains you see on the bottom of your homes exterior. Another sign to look out for is pools of water around the foundation that don’t seem to dry up. Thats a sign that the ground is saturated with water and it has nowhere to drain but into your house. If you don’t have landscaping or the land isn’t graded enough the water will simply take the path of least resistance and can flow into your basement walls or around baseman window seals.
The clay dirt that most of the homes in Northern Virginia are built can become compacted overtime and press inward on your basement walls and foundation. When your foundations develops a crack in it water now has a new path of least resistance to follow and will begin to slowly eat at the concrete especially if part of your foundation is exposed above ground and water in the crack starts to freeze and expand during the winter time. If the water driving back against your foundation creates a cavity under the foundation build a small sink hole where your home could resettle and make cracks in the walls that come natural with a new home but shouldn’t be happening in a older home. This could cause minor damage requiring just some touchup painting or large problems could arrive like masonry walls cracking, floors being uneven or windows cracking because the frames are twisted.
If a Gutter Drain Pipe is clogged it will cause a back up and it will overflow. This water soaked area creates a breading ground for insects like Mosquitos and Termites. If the water is pooling around a ground level window that isn’t properly sealed you may notice mold or algae growing around the window seal from all the extra moisture. Besides regularly cleaning your gutters you can add a gutter drain extension or an underground gutter drain to better distribute the water over a wider area away from the house.
Here in Northern Virginia we have almost a perfect storm of new houses being built over the last 20 years using cheap builder grade gutters that are to small to handle any real volume of rain. The clay dirt that the houses were built on is terrible at draining and many of the older neighborhood are surrounded by tall trees with one or two story houses that love to collect leafs. All of this makes having a gutter cleaning service an important part of your annual home maintenance program.