Gutter Cleaning in Turramurra

What makes Turramurra hard on guttering is volume, from both directions.

Sitting high on the ridge, the suburb records noticeably higher rainfall than the coastal and inner suburbs, so the gutters have more water to carry in the first place. At the same time, blackbutt, blue gum and angophora from Ku-ring-gai Chase to the north and Lane Cove National Park to the south drop leaf, bark and twig continuously rather than seasonally, so there is no month when these runs are genuinely clear.

Bark is the worst of it, coming off in long strips that do not break down and instead lodge across the run to form a dam that holds everything behind it.

Topography decides the access. Blocks fall away steeply from the street into the gullies, so a house that is single storey at the front is frequently two storeys at the back, over a slope, retaining wall or bush where a ladder has nowhere safe to stand.

Rainwater tanks are common here too, and everything sitting in the gutter is what ends up in the tank.

We vacuum from ground level and clear the downpipes rather than flushing debris toward them.

The reason gutters matter more here than in a drier suburb is simply that there is more water to get wrong.

A partially blocked gutter that copes with average rainfall will overflow in a Turramurra downpour, and on a block that falls away from the street that overflow does not run harmlessly onto a lawn. It runs down the slope against the structure, into the eaves and toward footings that are already dealing with a hillside.

Downpipes are the under-appreciated part. Fine litter that washes past the gutter lodges at the bend, and on a steep block the resulting overflow tends to find a stormwater pit that then backs up further down the slope rather than anywhere obvious.

For anyone running a rainwater tank, clearing the gutters directly affects water quality for irrigation and household use, since whatever is sitting up there is what the tank collects.

And because the load never stops arriving, the interval matters more than the individual clean. A property adjoining reserve can fill a gutter in a single season, and clearing from ground level makes a shorter interval practical on blocks where ladder work is genuinely unsafe.