Many people will place the hose of a leaf blower directly into the gutters to force the debris out by air. The force of this blowing air will also push leaf and tree debris up under the bottom tiles into your eave space. The eave space is the part of your roof that overhangs the walls of the building. We often try to explain this issue to other tradespeople who use leaf blowers for gutter cleaning but many don’t listen.
With your roof at home there is a way of proving that leaves are being blown into your eaves. If you feel confident on ladders, remove the bottom tile on your roof edge and look into the eaves space. If your house is older than 10 years and in a leafy area, it is almost guaranteed that you will find some dust & leaf debris inside your eaves; this has been blown in by strong wind. If strong winds blow leaves under your roof edge imagine how much can be blown inside by a leaf blower machine. Most roof eaves in Melbourne unfortunately do have some leaf debris inside.
If your gutters are regularly being cleared using the leaf blower method, your eaves space could potentially be almost completely full with gutter debris; but this would be a rare worst case scenario. Roof eaves filled with dry leaf debris can be a serious fire risk. The gap between a gutter and the bottom tiles is normally very small but these small gaps are large enough for some leaves to be blown in.
Removal of leaf debris from a roof space can be an exceptionally expensive exercise, particularly if your home is double storey.
Cleaning gutters by leaf blower is normally something that only an inexperienced gutter cleaner would do. A common complaint that we hear from home owners is, “our last gutter cleaning company used leaf blowers and blew all the rubbish all over our garden.” A mess at ground level can easily be cleaned up with basics tools like brooms and garden rakes, but unbeknown to these home owners there is a much more difficult cleaning job inside their eaves.
Call us now for gutter cleaning on 1300 472 976.
