Finding the chase and cutting to it

You know how much I love a three day weekend.  When my husband asked what I wanted to do with the last useful bank holiday in the UK this year, I said “clean the gutters”.

One of the few big benefits of a “chalet bungalow” is having gutters that can be easily reached reached with a step ladder without being dangerous or terrifying, is that we can really benefit from using “gutter hedgehogs”.

These stops leaves and other debris from blocking your gutter pipes. For us, living near so many deciduous trees, they are essential.

The downside is that they do need cleaning. On average, we do it every couple of years and with two or three of you, doing the whole house takes two to three hours.

Slackers!

Not really. Partly due to lockdown and not wanting to risk being in hospital, it had been a while. So, you have to relearn how to do things. I am sharing this for next time (2027).

Front of house.

Steps:

1. Starting from garage, pull out the gutter hedgehogs.
2. Shake the looser debris from each hog – ideally over the garden recycling bin or a wheelbarrow for your compost.
3. Wearing gardening gloves, “bristle” the spikes.
4. Starting at one end, use the other end to brush out the final debris.
5. Meanwhile, the person up the ladder cleans out the debris that has fallen of the hedgehog during removal.
6. Return the length of gutter hedgehog to the roof.

We have several lenghts for the front and back of the house, so repeat the above instructions for each length.

The beauty about this technique is that it doesn’t use any water or power.

It does make an awful mess of the driveway or garden in the back, but all this sweeps away fairly easily.

All in all, a job well done, and many cups of tea were used in the cleaning of our gutters.

And a note for how to do this next time 🙂