Gutter Specialists in Portland, OR

Portland Gutter Cleaning

As a homeowner in Portland, gutter cleaning is a natural part of your home maintenance schedule. Leaves, dirt, and debris will pile up in your gutter whether you have nearby trees or not. Birds and pests can build nests and leave droppings. Though you may be aware that your gutters need to be cleaned every year, if you've been lucky enough to avoid a guttering failure, you may not realize just how dangerous leaving your gutters uncleaned for even a single year can be.

When gutters or downspouts fail, any number of things can happen, all of them bad, some worse than others. Rain can trickle down your siding and if it manages to get behind the surface of your siding, the repair work can cost thousands of dollars. More commonly, this rainwater will make its way into the ground near your home, which can cause problems for your foundation or create stagnant pools of water on your lawn, a breeding ground for insects, fungus, and bacteria. Finally, the water may back up into your roofing system, generating a list of problems from roof, insulation, and/or drywall damage and increases the chances that mold and pests will find their way into your home.

Professional Gutter Cleaning
Many homeowners clean their own gutters, and if you have the wherewithal, there's no reason you can't do the job yourself. Don't get up there, throw a few big clumps out of your gutter, and convince yourself that's good enough. Likewise, be honest with yourself about what you can safely do. Two story homes with an undulating yard may create gutters beyond your capacity to clean. Other homeowners hire a professional simply because it's convenient. Especially if you own a ranch home with easily accessible gutters, you won't need to spend a bunch of money to have your gutters cleaned. Along with cleaning your gutters, professional gutter cleaners will also be able to inspect your gutters, looking for leaks in the joints between gutter sections, and places where your gutters are loose or have pulled away from your roof soffits. Another crucial piece of gutter cleaning that many homeowners overlook is flushing downspouts. If a clog is created in a downspout the water will back up and, again, create a number of problems for your home.

Costs
While the national average cost of gutter cleaning is $200, Portland gutter cleaning tends to be a bit more expensive. This probably has to do with the persistence of rain, the high demand for gutter cleaning services, and a generally higher cost of living in the Portland area. That said, every house, every gutter system, and every contractor is different. Nearly every homeowner who has talked to us about their project commented on the wide range of estimates they received from contractors. To get the best gutter cleaning services at a reasonable price, you must be patient and solicit as many estimates as you can. Be wary of substantially lower bids, as they may be a sign of a contractor who, for example, won't remove leaves and debris from your yard. We even heard from one homeowner who had debris stuck to his home's siding.

Cleaning Contractors
Finding the right contractor for the job is where HomeAdvisor truly empowers homeowners. After you submit a request, take a look at our online customer ratings and reviews section. This will allow you to see what other homeowners have thought about their experience with individual contractors and it creates a powerful incentive for contractors to meet and exceed your expectations. Each and every one of our contractors is put through a rigorous ten-step screening process that ensures basic standards of professional credentials and honesty. Only by using these ratings and reviews and trusting your own intuition can you be assured of making the best hiring decision for your home. Free of charge, we condense and make transparent all the information about local home improvement contractors that would take many hours for you to assemble on your own.