How Often Should Gutters Be Cleaned? Usually Twice a Year
Most Monmouth County homes need their gutters cleaned twice a year, once in late spring and once after the leaves drop in late fall. If your house sits under a lot of trees, twice may not be enough, and three to four times a year is more like it.
What decides it is the trees. A gutter only fills with what lands on the roof, so the more that falls on yours, the more often it needs clearing.
In this guide
- Why trees decide how often
- The best time to clean gutters
- Signs twice a year is not enough
- When fewer cleanings is the right answer
- What gutter guards change
- Common questions (FAQ)
Why trees decide how often you clean gutters
Leaves, seeds, twigs and needles are what clog a gutter. All of it comes from the trees around your house. So the real question is how much of it ends up on your roof.
| What’s around your house | How often to clean |
|---|---|
| Few or no trees near the roof | Once or twice a year |
| A tree or two nearby | Twice a year |
| A lot of trees, branches over the roof | Three to four times a year |
| Gutter guards fitted | Still once or twice a year |
Pines are their own case. They are evergreen, but they still drop their oldest needles every fall. Near pines, the downspout usually clogs before the gutter does, because needles pack together at the outlet. Why pine needles do that.
The best time to clean gutters
Late spring
Spring drops its own mess. Seeds, oak tassels and maple seeds come down, and pine pollen falls for a few weeks in April and May. A cleaning in late spring clears all of that out before summer.
Late fall, after the leaves are down
This is the one people get wrong. Clean too early and the job does not last. The leaves are only starting to drop, and one storm can pack a gutter that was clear a week before.
So wait until the trees closest to your house are bare. Then clean. In Monmouth County that is usually the end of November, and it is when our phones get busiest.
On a house with a lot of trees, the extra visits go in the fall. One comes early, around the end of September or October, when the first leaves and seeds come down. The other comes at the end of November, once the rest have dropped.
The fall cleaning matters for winter too. A gutter that goes into the cold full of leaves holds water, and that water freezes.
Signs twice a year is not enough
Your house may need three or four cleanings a year if:
- The gutters fill back up within a month of a cleaning.
- Water spills over the front of the gutter in ordinary rain, not just a downpour.
- Little or nothing comes out of the downspout when it rains.
The easiest way to check is from the ground. Next time it pours, walk around the house and watch where the water goes. Stay off the ladder. Here is how to read what you see.
One thing to rule out first. If a gutter overflows right after a cleaning, the clog may not be in the gutter at all. A lot of homes here have downspouts that drop into a buried pipe that comes out in the yard or at the curb. When that pipe clogs, the water has nowhere to go. We clear those lines too. What a gutter cleaning includes.
When fewer cleanings is the right answer
More cleanings is not always better. If not much falls on your roof, extra visits clean gutters that were already clear.
Take a beach house with barely any trees that had been on a six-times-a-year plan. With almost nothing overhead, six visits was far more than that house needed. It gets cleaned twice a year now, and that does the job.
Photos of your house and the trees around it usually show us which group you are in.
What gutter guards change
Guards cut down how often the gutters need cleaning. They do not end it. A house with guards still gets cleaned once or twice a year, because leaves and needles pile up on top of a guard and need clearing off. Cleaning is part of looking after a house, guards or not.
On a house with a lot of trees, that is the difference between three or four cleanings a year and one or two. Over a few years, the cleanings you skip are how guards pay for themselves.
They also change what happens between cleanings. Without them, a gutter can fill and overflow weeks before the next visit. Water spills against the foundation, soaks the fascia behind the gutter, and can find its way into the house. Guards keep the gutter flowing in the meantime. Think of them as insurance against that damage.
They make the most sense on a house with a lot of trees, where gutters fill fast. On a house with nothing overhanging it, they are not worth the money, and we will say so.
See the gutter guards we install. To weigh them up, start with what a gutter cleaning costs in NJ and count the visits you would skip each year.
Common questions (FAQ)
Not sure how many cleanings your house needs? Text a few photos of your house and the trees around it to (732) 639-2687. You get back a flat price, usually within a few hours, and an honest answer on whether twice a year will do. We work across all of Monmouth County from Red Bank.Not sure how many cleanings your house needs? Send a few photos of your house and the trees around it with the quote form below, or text them to (732) 639-2687. You get back a flat price, usually within a few hours, and an honest answer on whether twice a year will do. We work across all of Monmouth County from Red Bank.