Gutter clearing in the UK typically costs £45 to £75 for a bungalow, £55 to £90 for a terraced house, £70 to £120 for a semi-detached and £100 to £180 for a detached, per visit. Three storey properties run £140 to £220. Priced by the metre instead, the trade sits at roughly £4 to £12 a metre. London and the South East run 20 to 30 per cent above those figures; the Midlands sits close to the national average.
Those are market ranges rather than anybody's price list. The more useful question is what the number is actually buying, because two quotes on the same semi can differ by £60 and be for genuinely different jobs.
Cost by property type
| Property | Typical per visit | Time on site |
|---|---|---|
| Bungalow or single storey | £45 to £75 | 30 to 45 minutes |
| Terraced house | £55 to £90 | 45 minutes to 1 hour |
| End of terrace | £65 to £100 | About an hour |
| Semi-detached | £70 to £120 | 1 to 1.5 hours |
| Detached | £100 to £180 | 1.5 to 2.5 hours |
| Three storey or townhouse | £140 to £220 | 2 hours plus |
Storey count moves the price more than floor area does, because it decides what equipment reaches the gutter. A bungalow is cheap because a short pole does it; a three storey townhouse is expensive because the pole gets long, heavy and slow to control.
Most companies hold a minimum charge too, commonly around the terraced house rate, so clearing one short run on its own rarely costs proportionally less.
Why the ground vacuum is the default
Work at height in this country is governed by the Work at Height Regulations 2005, and the first duty in them is not to do it more safely but to avoid it altogether where that is reasonably practicable. On an ordinary house a ground based vacuum makes avoidance practicable, so the ladder needs a reason rather than the vacuum needing a justification.
The machine is a high powered wet and dry vacuum on the ground, connected to a carbon fibre pole with a curved head that drops into the gutter. Debris is lifted out of the run and into the machine. Nothing is dragged along to the next section, nothing goes over the front edge into your borders, and nobody stands on anything.
It also costs less, which is why the trade moved. A ladder job needs someone footing it or repositioning it constantly, and a job that genuinely cannot be done from the ground needs a tower or a powered platform, adding £150 to £500. Those houses are a small minority. If a quote is unusually low, the likely explanation is that it assumes a ladder.
The camera is the part worth paying for
A gutter is the only part of a house nobody can inspect from the ground. You cannot see into it, so you cannot tell whether it was cleared, half cleared or only looked at. It is the one exterior job where the customer genuinely cannot verify the work.
A wireless camera on the pole head solves it. It sits above the gutter looking down the run and the operator sees the inside on a screen at ground level. Footage before and after turns an unverifiable job into a checkable one, and it is common enough now that you should ask for it rather than hope for it, particularly as a landlord.
What actually blocks a gutter
Not dirt. It is moss washed off the roof tiles, leaf litter, the mineral grit that sheds off tile and felt surfaces as they age, the silt all of that decomposes into, and nesting material where something has got in under the eaves.
That matters for pricing, because wet moss is heavy and a packed run takes real time to lift. It matters for timing too. Leaves arrive in one burst in autumn; moss arrives all year and fastest off a shaded north facing roof, which is why houses with no trees near them still block up.
Clearing and washing are two different jobs
The most common misunderstanding customers have when the quote arrives.
Clearing empties the inside of the gutter. That is the job that stops the overflow.
An external gutter wash cleans the outside faces of the gutter and the downpipes. That is the job that removes the dark vertical streaks, usually called tiger striping, that you can see from the pavement.
One does not do the other. A cleared gutter can still look filthy from the garden, and a washed gutter can still be full. An external wash, usually quoted with the fascias and soffits, commonly adds £40 to £80 on a standard semi, or roughly £2 to £5 a metre. Gutter, fascia and soffit cleaning together is commonly quoted at £80 to £150 for a three bed semi.
Downpipes, shoes and hoppers
A clear gutter feeding a blocked downpipe overflows exactly as it did before. This is the single most common reason someone pays for a gutter clean and sees no change.
Three things need proving rather than assuming. The outlet where the gutter feeds the pipe, which is where a mat forms first. The shoe at the bottom, the curved section discharging into the gully, which silts up and backs the whole stack. And the hopper head where one exists, the open funnel partway down a stack on many older Nottingham properties, which collects debris from an upper run and has to be emptied by hand.
Unblocking a downpipe is commonly charged at £20 to £60 per pipe, the spread reflecting whether it clears with rods and a flush or the pipe has to come apart. Some companies include a flush in the base price. Ask which.
Extras and what they typically add
| Extra | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Conservatory gutter added to a visit | £30 to £50 |
| Downpipe unblocked, per pipe | £20 to £60 |
| External gutter wash, fascias and soffits | £40 to £80 |
| Gutter guards supplied and fitted | £200 to £500 |
| Tower or powered access where a pole cannot reach | £150 to £500 |
Conservatory gutters are worth adding. A conservatory sheds a large roof area into a small gutter set low down, and once it silts up, water sits along the bottom edge of the glazing where the seals are. The box gutter where a lean-to meets the house wall is the one that causes damp indoors and the one nobody looks at, and conservatory roof cleaning covers it in detail.
Gutter guards, honestly
Guards are sold as the end of gutter maintenance. They are not.
They work reasonably well against whole leaves and do very little about moss, pine needles and silt, which is most of what fills a British gutter. Brush inserts are the worst option in practice: they trap decomposing litter inside the bristles and are routinely found two years later with seedlings growing out of them. Mesh is better and still passes fine material.
At £200 to £500 fitted, with clearing still needed because the guard has to come off first, a guard on a semi costs three to five annual cleans and does not remove them. Where they earn their place is a run under a mature tree that genuinely fills every few months.
When you need a roofer, not a cleaner
A cleaner clears and washes. Paying for a second clean because the first did not solve something a clean cannot solve is wasted money. Get a roofer or a guttering firm for a run that sags between brackets and holds standing water, brackets pulling out of the fascia, split or leaking joints, a section with no fall left in it, and any leak that continues once the run is empty. A good clean tells you which of these you have, because the camera finds them. It does not repair them.
Gutter clearing is normally a separate visit from a window round, even though the same pole system carries both heads, which is why it appears as its own line rather than inside a window price. Our window cleaning cost guide covers that side, and the gutter cleaning service page sets out what a visit includes.
Frequently asked questions
How often should gutters be cleaned? Once a year for most houses, in late autumn once the nearby trees are bare. Twice a year with overhanging trees, conifers, or a shaded roof shedding moss. Clearing in September means clearing again in December, so the timing matters more than the frequency.
Is the downpipe included in the price? Sometimes a flush is, and a genuine unblocking usually is not. It is one of the most common differences between two quotes, so get it itemised.
Does a clear gutter mean a clean looking gutter? No. Clearing is the inside, washing is the outside. If the streaks on the front face are what is bothering you, you want the external wash as well, and it is a separate line.
Do I need to be at home? Usually not, provided every elevation is reachable and side gates are unlocked. This is exactly why before and after footage is worth asking for.
Why is a three storey house so much more? Pole length. A longer pole is heavier and slower to control, and above a certain height the vacuum stops being practicable at all, at which point the job needs a tower and changes price category.
Can it be done in the rain? Light rain, yes, and it is arguably the best time to see whether a run is actually draining. Persistent heavy rain or wind stops it, as does frost, because a frozen mat will not lift.
