How To Clean Blocked Downpipes

If need to take care of your own guttering then let me quickly run through on how to clean blocked downpipes, then you know that looking after your roof is quite a challenging maintenance task to do on a regular basis. The roofing can often be forgotten about and the guttering easily blocks up and causes major water damage to another property. Whether its commercial or residential premises, someone is paying the damage bill for the water damage caused by maintenance staff or home owner not cleaning the downpipes and making sure the roofing maintenance is up to standard.

One of our commercial customers had us come out to a large Bunning’s Warehouse in Adelaide, South Australia. There was buckets of water squirting out the blocked downpipes and warehouse roofing on the shops stock, staff and customers. When we arrived it was still raining heavily, and I was lucky I remembered to take up my downpipe cleaner on the warehouse roof. There were 40 box gutter downpipes along the front and rear of the warehouse building.

After looking at all the downpipes and checking them to see why they were blocked. I noticed all the heavily blocked downpipes had a gutter mesh on them. The box gutters had about 200 liters of water in them and nowhere to go due to the downpipes being completely blocked up. So the water was gushing out into the Bunning’s warehouse itself. As I got around to inspecting all the blocked downpipes, the solution was very simple.

We had to remove the gutter guard and mesh that covered the downpipe. The leaves would have easily gone down the large box gutter downpipes, but the gutter mesh had caused the major blockage which resulted in the water damage. It was pouring down with rain and I was a soaking wet, a wet downpipe cleaner, doing my best to ensure the roofing maintenance was completed and the guttering was all clear and downpipes unblocked.

I took some great videos and photos of the gutter mesh causing the downpipes to be blocked. Showing clearly that gutter mesh and the guards are not effective enough to be installed and forgotten about. the gutter mesh and guards will still require regular cleaning and maintenance, especially when it comes to the box gutters on commercial buildings that are hardly ever checked. If your commercial or residential premises has been experiencing the same water leaks and damage, then call us anytime 24/7 for the best commercial guttering service in Adelaide, South Australia.

For all you DIY handy men and ladies in Adelaide, South Australia, then unblocking and cleaning your downpipes is quite easy if your not scared of ladders and getting a bit wet and cold. There are plenty of DIY downpipe cleaning guides on various video and informational sites. They have great instructional pictures and step by step guides on how to clean downpipes. The simplest way to do it yourself, is to get a quality gardening hose and a ladder. You need to remove the plastic fittings from one of the garden hose and plug the other side into the water tap.

Then you climb up to the blocked downpipe, make sure the ground under the ladder is stable and secure. Take the side of the garden hose that you removed the plastic fittings and start pushing about 20cm of hose into the blocked downpipe. While the hose is in the downpipe, get a partner or even yourself to turn on the water tap. The pressure from the water hose should clear any blocked downpipe. Even just a little bit of garden hose with no water is an effective downpipe cleaner, push hose into downpipe, quickly shove the hose in and out to release any debris in the downpipe causing blockages. This method is the best way to do it, when cleaning downpipes.