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TALES FROM THE GUTTERS

TALES FROM THE GUTTERS

Thinking About Home

Where we live is much more than a building we inhabit, a space we occupy or even somewhere to give us shelter. Home is where we can kick off our shoes and kick back and relax. Home is where we can be ourselves and, if we want to, be by ourselves. Home is where we can make the world more like we think it should be.

Tales From The Gutters is a mixture of the serious and the silly, the thoughtful and the technical with ideas and comments on the homes we live in and the city of Sheffield that we call home.

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Avoid Gutter Cleaning At Your Peril!

Avoid Gutter Cleaning At Your Peril!

Have you heard the one about the couple who didn’t get their gutter’s cleaned and now they can’t touch them because they’ve been designated as protected wetland?

Obviously that’s a joke (honest!), but it is an important reminder that keeping an eye on your guttering is a key aspect of property maintenance. Here are a few indicators that your gutters need some attention before they start to resemble Endcliffe Park. 

Vegetation

We all like plants and ferns, but in the right place and we all know that a gutter isn’t the right place! But birds drop seeds and if a gutter hasn’t been cleaned regularly, it will prove to be fertile ground for seeds dropped to flourish. But if it’s vegetation you’re looking for, get it removed from your gutters and put into plant pots which are a safer bet. 

Waterfalls

Waterfalls can be spectacular to watch, but not if they’re coming from your gutter or the top of your downpipes. The purpose of a gutter is to be a conduit to take rain water away from your property in a controlled manner. If you can see water coming out, then you know something is wrong. 

Animals

What’s not to like about wildlife? Quite a bit as it happens. There’s a lot not to like about squirrels and other ‘critters’ in your roof space, and unattended gutters both encourage and facilitate them being there. Keep them clean and free flowing, and there’s nothing to attract them. It also means that when we’re keeping them spick and span, we can also check out your tiles and any timber work up there, so killing two birds with one stone as it were. Though we’d be sure to take them away with us! 

Steel City Gutters provides the following services:

  • Gutter cleaning, repair & replacement including wooden guttering
  • Conservatory & uPVC cleaning
  • Drives & patios pressure washed
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Mary Poppins And Our Gutters

Mary Poppins And Our Gutters

I’m sure most if not all of you remember Mary Poppins. The thing which impressed me most as a young child watching the film was her magic carpet bag! It seemed as though anything and everything could be contained in that relatively small receptacle – a hat stand, a large mirror, a pot plant to name just 3 items pulled out to the wonderment of the kids watching. 

It may surprise you to know that gutters have the same magical properties. You would be as amazed as the Banks’ children if you saw what we lift out of these pieces of plastic or lengths of wood when we do gutter cleaning in Sheffield.

And this wasn’t from a derelict house. This was from the gutters of a well looked after property. But because gutters can’t be seen from ground level, they can often be neglected. I know we covered this in our last Tales From The Gutter but the heavy rains we’ve just had and the further thunderstorms forecast for over the weekend, encouraged us to flag it up once more.

As this recent video from Sheffield shows, when rain is this heavy, it can bring down leaves, large twigs and branches, plaster, tiling, even metal from an arial. And it stands to reason that you can’t have that volume or type of material in a gutter without problems.

We all know there is no such thing as a magical carpet bag, so let’s make sure we’re not trying to play a similar trick with our guttering!

Steel City Gutters provides the following services:

  • Gutter cleaning, repair & replacement including wooden guttering
  • Conservatory & uPVC cleaning
  • Drives & patios pressure washed
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Prevention or Cure?

Prevention or Cure?

One of the things that the COVID pandemic is underlining for all of us is that prevention is much better than a cure. Avoiding infection altogether is way better than ending up in an ICU on a ventilator if at all possible. It’s the same principle in many areas of our lives. Topping your car engine up with oil every now and then is better than getting it towed to a garage to have a seized up engine repaired or even replaced! Exactly the same principle applies to all areas of external cleaning of our property. 

Let me explain it this way. I confess to not infrequently being too busy (a.k.a lazy!) to wash my car, so I just stop off at the Car Wash on Abbeydale Road and pay others to do it. That’s fine and I’m always pleased with the result, but it means that I seldom lift the bonnet, or get to take a close look at the paintwork or door seals. It’s only when it’s washed, and the doors opened and the carpet vacuumed that I get to spot potential problems so I can fix them or have them fixed before they become actual problems.

When we pressure wash a drive or patio, or clean a conservatory or get up to inspect gutters and fascias, we not only get the job done, we also get a close look at the general state of repair. That means we can then alert you to something that may soon become a problem or turn into a bigger, more expensive problem further down the line. 

Like I said, prevention is better than a cure. But don’t worry, we’ve got plans afoot to help you with that. So like they say, watch this space! 

 

Steel City Gutters provides the following services:

  • Gutter cleaning, repair & replacement including wooden guttering
  • Conservatory & uPVC cleaning
  • Drives & patios pressure washed
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TIME FOR REVIVAL

TIME FOR REVIVAL

We’ve already had our first few hints of the spring showers to come… and the phone lines were nearly swept away!

So just a gentle reminder as those showers continue to pass by our way, to book ahead and avoid disappointment.

Heavy rains and snowfall often lead to many reports of damage to gutter systems. Typically, this occurs on wooden systems which haven’t been maintained or plastic systems which may not have been installed correctly in the first place. 

After incurring such damage, it’s always tempting to see how long you can get away with not attending to it. During spring and summer, we want to get out more and enjoy ourselves a little, rather than thinking about the place we’ve been cooped up inside of over winter.   

 

However, we want to counsel against a ‘survival’ mindset and instead suggest a ‘revival’ one! Between March and the end of September is the optimal time to repair, revive or replace your gutter systems. This is particularly true of timber systems because maintenance treatments can’t be effectively carried out in winter months. 

Not sure where you stand?

Use our FREE GUTTER HEALTH check tip***

Next time it rains, grab a brolley and look at the roofline on your house. Look out for any wet patches on walls, water running on the outside of your downpipe, waterfalls (big or small) from over the side of your gutter system or any unplanned rooftop gardens.

If you spot any of these signs or anything else untoward, film it and send it over to us and we can advise on next steps.

For gutter care at a price that’s fair, you know who to call! 

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SPRING INTO ACTION

SPRING INTO ACTION

“…. Drip, drip, drop little April showers beating a tune as you fall on the ground…”

When its officially springtime, daylight hours are longer, nature comes into bloom and things begin to feel a little brighter, as we leave behind the darkness of winter. Of-course one of the necessary driving forces behind the blooms of spring, are the April showers. Flowers don’t grow and leaves won’t turn green, without that ‘drip, drip, drop’.

After our recent prolonged dry spell, the ground is more than ready for bucket loads of drips and drops, to tumble down out of the sky.

As those interested in maintaining functioning gutter systems on your property, our question is “Are your rooflines prepared for it”?

Whether you think it’s a routine gutter clearance or a repair, that needs seeing too, we’d gently encourage you to prepare well for the wet weather now – rather than give us an emergency call later!

Perhaps you share your roofline with someone else? Or maybe you live on a cul-de-sac and think everyone’s in the same boat? We can offer special discounts and deals if multiple properties want to take advantage of our service.

You know who to call! 

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Once the spring / summer months come around,

Once the spring / summer months come around, you, our customers, tend to start enquiring about a whole host of exterior cleaning jobs.
First and foremost we are gutter specialists. However, having done other types of exterior cleaning many, many times over, we can confidently and competently complete such tasks. Using our top standard equipment, we consistently return a quality result.
Common enquiries for exterior cleaning include: uPVC washing, driveway and patio pressure washes and conservatory valets.
Please note, we do not do window cleaning nor take on window cleaning rounds.
May is a particularly good time to get your patio cleaned so it will sheen all summer long. Cleaning it sooner rather than later, frees you up to enjoy the space at its best just when you’ll want to be using it for your morning coffees, evening drinks and weekend BBQs!
If you want us to pressure wash your patio, here is a description of the process to give you an idea of what’s involved.

Our process

  • We’ll clear away any loose debris such as fallen leaves and big weeds.
  • With the specialist patio pressure head, we will methodically work over the patio area. Often this will mean working toward the point of drainage. Please note that a mains water supply is required for this.
  • A different pressure head is then selected to wash down surfaces that have picked up dirt and debris. This may also be used to quickly go over the patio area again.
  • The cleaning process does not involve chemicals.
  • Any garden furniture, plant pots and other items which may reside on the patio area will need to be isolated prior to undertaking the work.
Want your patio to gleam? Then call the Steel City Gutters team!