Can you clean your own gutters?

On a bungalow with firm level ground and light leaf debris, yes, plenty of people do it themselves. On a two-storey house it is a different question, and the risk is not the gutter. It is the ladder.

The ladder is the dangerous part

Falls from height are the biggest cause of fatal injury in UK workplaces, and a ladder resting on soft garden soil at home is no steadier than one on a building site. Gutter work makes it worse than normal ladder work, because you end up holding on with one hand, working with the other and reaching sideways to save yourself moving the ladder again. That sideways reach is what tips ladders over.

When doing it yourself is reasonable

• Single storey, and you can reach the run comfortably without leaning past the sides of the ladder.
• Firm, level ground to stand the ladder on, and somebody at the bottom of it.
• Loose leaves rather than compacted silt.
• Nothing fragile underneath, so a slip costs you a ladder rather than a conservatory roof.

When to leave it

• Two storeys or more, or a run above a stairwell, porch or extension roof.
• A conservatory, lean-to or greenhouse below the gutter line.
• Sloping, soft or paved-but-uneven ground where the ladder feet cannot sit flat.
• Moss and silt that has set solid, which needs digging out and the downpipe checking afterwards.
• A downpipe that is already blocked, because the blockage is usually at the bend near the bottom, not in the gutter at all.

What people accidentally do

• Lean the ladder on the gutter itself and snap a bracket or pop a clip.
• Push the debris along the run and straight into the downpipe, turning a clear-out into a blockage at the bend.
• Knock a sealed joint apart, which then drips for the rest of the year.
• Hose upwards under the tiles, which puts water where the roof was designed to keep it out.

Gutter vacuums and pole systems

The pole and vacuum kits the trade uses reach a two-storey gutter from the ground, and most run a camera on the pole so the operator can see the run rather than guess at it. That is the whole point of them: nobody goes up. Hiring one for a day and learning it on your own roofline usually costs more than having the job done, and you still have to judge what you are looking at.

If you do go up anyway

• Set the ladder at roughly one out for every four up, and tie it or have it footed.
• Keep your belt buckle inside the ladder sides. If you cannot reach, move the ladder.
• Stay off the top three rungs.
• Not in wind, not in rain, not on your own with nobody in the house.

The alternative

Whales clears gutters pole fed from the ground where access allows, flushes the downpipes and sends before and after photos so you can see the run is clear. Clearance starts at £85, which is less than a day's hire of the kit.