Cleaning your gutters is a chore that few people enjoy. Fortunately, gutter-cleaning tools make it easier to clear leaves, mud, and other types of debris from your gutter, and help protect your home from damage.
Keep reading to find out more about the gutter-cleaning tools you can use to keep water flowing through your gutters freely.
Your Gutters Need Regular Maintenance To Prevent Damage
Cleaning your gutters is essential for keeping your entire home in good condition. Unfortunately, if you don’t use gutter-cleaning tools regularly you could cause damage to other parts of your home.
Here are a few examples:
The Roof Might Let in Moisture
Water that sits in pools on your roof instead of going down your gutters leads to mold and moss forming. This prevents your roof from drying out in the sun after rain. Then, in winter this water can freeze and expand, creating places where water can enter your home and cause structural damage.
All of this can result in mold inside your house from excess moisture, which often creates:
- Stains on walls and ceilings
- Bad smells
- Allergy symptoms
- Asthma attacks
Removing mold is difficult because spores stay in the air, and you could need professional mold remediation if you let it go on too long.
Water Could Damage the Outer Walls of Your Home
When water can’t flow through clogged gutters, it goes right over the outside of your home. It can look like a waterfall in heavy rain, and it damages paint and many other parts of:
- Siding
- Shutters
- Doors
- Windows
The Foundation Could Deteriorate
Waterfalls caused by clogged gutters head straight for the soil around your house’s foundation. Over time, this could cause erosion or water in your basement. As water saturates the ground, the soil expands and creates cracks in the foundation.
Foundation issues may create:
- Cracks in walls
- Uneven floors
- Doors and windows that don’t open or close properly
Gutter Gardens May Grow
Decaying leaves and twigs in gutters are often visible from your lawn, and you could eventually get what many people call a gutter garden. Seeds from nearby trees and other plants sprout and grow roots in the fertile soil that rotting gutter debris creates.
Plants growing from gutters are difficult to remove and also make your house look poorly maintained. But besides aesthetics, gutter gardens accelerate rot and cause your gutters to fail completely if left untended.
There Are Many Gutter-Cleaning Tools to Help You
Fortunately, gutter-cleaning tools can help you tackle this chore easily and efficiently. Here are some of the types of tools available for gutter cleaning and some of the best options to help you with your gutters:
A Telescoping Gutter-Cleaning Tool Lets You Avoid Climbing a Ladder
People who clean their gutters by hand usually need to climb a tall ladder and go onto their roofs to reach them. But you don’t have to use a ladder and risk a fall with a telescoping gutter cleaning tool.
The Orbit Telescoping Gutter Cleaning Wand connects to a regular garden hose. It’s a long, hollow pole that’s curved at one end to reach gutters from the ground easily. You can adjust it to be 40 to 70 in. long and use this product to reach the second story of many homes with a small stepladder. Additionally, this gutter cleaning wand only weighs 1.3 lbs., so carrying it around your yard and moving it around your gutters is easy.
There’s a convenient on-and-off switch near the handle, and the nozzle can rotate 180 degrees to reach every part of your gutters. The water coming out of the nozzle can flow at 10 to 100 pounds per square inch (psi). So, just be warned you may get a bit wet when you use this tool.
Gutter-Cleaning Tools for Your Pressure Washer
If the water from your garden hose can’t remove all the debris in your gutters, consider a pressure washer. The Gutter Jet Electric Pressure Washer Attachment from Clog Hog works with most electric pressure washers.
There’s also a Gutter Jet for gas pressure washers from the same brand with identical features. (Clog Hog provides detailed information about which adapter and pressure washers work best with the Gutter Jet.)
Both are small, curved stainless steel pipes that can fit on many models of:
- Telescoping poles
- Metal spray lances for pressure washers
- Pressure washer trigger guns
After you position the Gutter Jet above your gutter, the nozzle can squirt six jets of water in opposite directions for fast gutter cleaning. A powered filter helps it keep spraying at up to 3,000 psi, and it’s easy to clean and reuse.
When you finish cleaning your gutters, use your pressure washer on its most gentle setting to move away any leaves or debris that fall on your porch or into your yard.
Attachments for Cleaning Your Gutters With a Leaf Blower Are Also Available
Pressure washers aren’t the only piece of outdoor power equipment you can use as a gutter-cleaning tool. For instance, you can avoid getting wet when cleaning your gutters by choosing accessories for your leaf blower.
The Worx Gutter Cleaning Kit contains seven pieces, including a nozzle and two adapters. Fortunately, and you can assemble them in a few minutes with no additional tools. Another plus is that the pipe length is adjustable, and it reaches up to 11 ft.
This kit fits most outdoor leaf blowers or vacuums, and it weighs 2.6 lbs. when you use all sections of the pipe.
Attachments for a Wet/Dry Outdoor Vacuum Cleaner Remove Big, Wet Clumps of Leaves & Straw
Accessories for outdoor or heavy-duty vacuum cleaners can pick up wet or partially decayed debris in your gutters, and they keep leaves and straw from falling below during gutter cleaning. The CRAFTSMAN 2-1/2 In. 4-Piece Wet/Dry Vac Gutter Cleaning Tool Kit fits CRAFTSMAN and many other brands of wet/dry vacs with a 2.5-inch outlet.
This tool comes with:
- 2 18-inch extension wands
- A curved vacuum nozzle
- A blower nozzle for vacuums that also work as leaf blowers
This kit reaches up to 47 in. and works with many extension wands that come with shop vacs. It also works well for reaching behind bushes to get leaves and vacuuming inside your home’s heating and air conditioning vents.
It weighs a total of 2.4 lbs., but it will be lighter when you use it because you won’t need to use both nozzles at once.
An Extension Ladder & Ladder Stabilizer Let You Reach Higher Than 2 Stories
If your house is taller than two stories, gutter cleaning requires a sturdy ladder that can hold you and the equipment you use. If you need a heavy-duty ladder, consider the Werner MT-22 Multi-Position Ladder. This ladder reaches up to 22 ft., holds up to 300 lbs., and has slip-resistant feet and a flared bottom for extra stability.
This ladder works as a:
- Twin stepladder
- Stairway stepladder
- Extension ladder
- Scaffold base
- Wall Ladder
We also recommend adding a ladder stabilizer to your ladder. A ladder stabilizer is a horizontal bar that’s curved on both ends to help your ladder rest safely against your home’s walls while you clean the gutters and take care of other tasks.
One option is the 44-in. wide Werner AC78 QuickClick Stabilizer. It attaches to many ladders with a spring-loaded, locking latch, and it works with ladders up to 40 ft tall. There’s even a hook for hanging equipment like pressure washers or wet/dry vacuums.
Learning How to Clean a Gutter Makes the Task Faster, Safer & Easier
Now that we’ve gone over why it’s important to clean your gutters and some tools that will make the job easier, here are some tips you’ll want to review before you get started:
Gather Your Gutter-Cleaning Tools Before You Start
Before you start, make sure you have all the gutter-cleaning tools you need. Along with what’s mentioned above, it’s a good idea to use safety glasses and puncture-resistant work gloves. They can protect you from cuts and keep your hands dry while you clean your gutters.
Use a Tarp to Catch Debris
If lots of leaves and other debris may fall from your gutters while you’re cleaning them, place a tarp underneath each section of your gutters before you start working. When you finish that section, use the tarp to gather the leaves and dispose of them. This is faster than raking the leaves or using a pressure washer.
Be Careful When a Pressure Washer Is On
Pressure washers spray water at high pressures, and they could damage your home’s paint or your roof. They could also harm your bushes or cause cuts or bruises if the water hits someone directly.
Always keep your pressure washer off until you position it right above your gutter. Then, turn it off again before you bring it back to the ground.
Ask for Help When Needed
Ask a friend or family member for help if you have a large home or one with multiple stories. The job will be over much faster and will be safer with a little help.
Consider Gutter Guards
After you finish cleaning, installing gutter guards can help your gutters stay clear for longer. You can order 6-in. samples of GutterBrush’s Gutter Guards in different diameters to test which size fits your gutters best before purchasing.
Many Homeowners Should Use Gutter-Cleaning Tools
Cleaning your own gutters with the tools above is less costly over time than hiring a professional, even when the tools you choose are expensive.
When you have gutter-cleaning tools that are durable, easy to use, and work with other tools you may already have like pressure washers or leaf blowers, this task can go from a chore to easy and maybe even kind of fun.
