A gutter sits under everything the house sheds. Leaves land in it, but so does whatever the roof and the last roofing crew left behind, and it all settles into the same trough between cleanings.
What does the debris in a gutter say about the house?
Where the house is wearing, mostly. Trees fill the trough, but grit from the shingles, crumbs from a brick chimney, nails from the last roof job and flakes from the gutter’s own metal end up in the same wet layer at the bottom. A crew doing gutter cleaning in Lakewood by hand, scoop and bucket, sees that layer. A blower scatters it over the lawn before anyone looks.
Look in the bucket, or in the paper bags on the tree lawn if you were not home. Nobody needs to climb anything to read it. Most finds mean nothing, and a couple mean a call to someone other than a gutter crew.
Why is there sand-like grit in my gutters?
Asphalt shingles are coated in small mineral granules, and some wash off with every hard rain. A little grit in the bottom of the trough shows up at almost every cleaning and means nothing on its own. A new roof tends to shed more for its first season or so, as the loose granules left from the factory come off.
Look for where it piles. Grit collects heaviest below a roof valley, where two slopes pour into one spot, and against the end cap at the low end of the run. A thin drift there is normal wear. A bucket that comes down heavy with it, cleaning after cleaning, is a question for a roofer rather than a gutter crew. The guide to guards on older roofs covers what a heavy load of granules says about an aging roof.
What is the black sludge in the bottom of the gutter?
Leaves, maple seed, bark and shingle grit that have sat wet long enough to rot into one dense mat. It forms at the bottom of the trough first, under the dry leaves on top, and it is the part a hand scoop exists for. It comes up in dark slabs that keep the shape of the trough.
The trouble with the mat is water. It soaks up rain and keeps it against the bottom of the gutter for days after the sky has cleared. On steel that is where rust gets its start. On aluminum it keeps the seams and the outlet wet, which is hard on the sealant at every joint, and in January it freezes into a heavy block that hangs off the hangers.
How thick it gets is mostly a measure of time. A thin layer means the gutter was cleaned within the last season or two. A mat that fills a third of the trough means it has sat a while, and the cleaning was plainly due.
Why is there red grit or mortar in the gutter under the chimney?
Red or brick-colored grit and pale crumbs of mortar, collected in the run below a brick chimney, usually mean the chimney is weathering. The crown at the top, the mortar joints, or the face of the brick itself is breaking down and washing into the gutter a little at a time. That is a look for a mason or a chimney pro.
The gutter crew can scoop it out and tell you where it came from. It cannot fix the source, and no gutter visit should claim to. Mortar crumbs tend to show up as a small, gritty, light-gray pile in one spot rather than spread along the run, which is what sets them apart from shingle grit at a glance. Bits of actual brick, flaking off in thin red chips, are the stronger sign.
In our judgment this is one of the more useful things a cleaning can turn up. A chimney is hard to see well from the ground on a two-and-a-half story house, so the gutter below it is often the first place the wear shows.
Why are there nails or pieces of shingle in the gutter?
Usually one of two events. After a re-roof, it is tear-off debris the roofers’ cleanup missed, roofing nails and scraps of old shingle and felt. Tear-off is rough on the gutter, too, with old shingles and ladders sliding over the front lip. A lip bent down in one spot, or a hanger knocked loose, is a common leftover from the day the roof came off.
After a wind storm, whole tabs or torn pieces of shingle in the trough mean the roof lost material, and the roof should be looked at by a roofer before the next storm. If a claim might follow, photograph what came out before it goes in a bag. Whether homeowners insurance covers gutter damage walks through how adjusters draw the storm line.
A steel roofing nail left lying in a wet aluminum gutter rusts where it sits and can leave an orange stain on the bottom, so the crew pulls them. A bent lip or a loose hanger is a repair, and it gets its own written price before anyone touches it.
What do rust flakes in the scoop mean?
On a steel gutter, reddish flakes and scale coming up with the sludge mean the trough is rusting from the inside, where the wet mat has been sitting. Some scale on old steel is normal. Flakes that come up in layers, with thin or pitted metal under them, mean the run is further along, and how much life is left in old steel gutters covers how to read it.
Aluminum does not rust red, so an orange stain in an aluminum trough usually comes from something steel sitting in it or touching it. A stray nail does it, and so does an old steel hanger or a steel downspout piece patched into the system years ago.
Which findings are a gutter job, and which belong to someone else?
Sorted by who gets the call:
- Grit by the bucket, cleaning after cleaning: a roofer.
- Mortar crumbs or brick chips under the chimney: a mason or chimney pro.
- Nails and torn shingle after a roof job or a storm: the roofer who did the work, or the roofer who checks the storm damage. The bent lip and loose hangers they left are gutter repair.
- Rust that has gone through a steel run in more than one place: gutter replacement, usually in seamless aluminum.
- A thick black mat and nothing else: the cleaning was due.
Most cleanings end on that last line. For a two-and-a-half story double, both units, the cleaning runs $220 to $325, with $50 to $100 added for a first cleaning after several skipped years. The cost page has what a cleaning costs by house for bungalows and colonials.