Gutters, leaf guard and ember guard on a bush block

A gutter here has two jobs, not one

On the coastal plain a gutter moves water. On a bush-interface block in the Blue Mountains it moves water and it is the single most likely place for an ember to find fuel against your house. Both of those have to be designed for, and the second one is why gutter work is a normal part of the roofing conversation here rather than an add-on.

With roughly 70% of the local government area inside Blue Mountains National Park and the NSW Rural Fire Service describing the district as one of the most bush fire prone in the state, a gutter full of dry eucalypt leaf sitting against a roof edge is a known hazard, not a theoretical one.

Call (02) 4703 5000 for a free inspection and a written quote on gutters, downpipes and guard.

The leaf load here is not ordinary

Eucalypts do not drop neatly in autumn. They shed leaf, twig, nut and long strips of bark all year, and the bark is the part that causes the trouble because it mats and holds water. Add the canopy density through Hazelbrook, Woodford, Faulconbridge and Winmalee, and a mature Mountain Blue Gum that can stand over 70 metres, and you have a roof that is being fed litter continuously.

What that litter does:

• Dams the gutter so water backs up over the tile or sheet ends and into the eaves.
• Sits wet against the back of the gutter and the fascia, which is how fascia timber rots.
• Blocks valleys, which is a far more expensive failure because the valley board underneath rots out of sight.
• Becomes fine, dry fuel at the most exposed point of the building.

Leaf guard and ember guard: related, not identical

Two different products solving two different problems, often sold under one name.

Leaf guard keeps litter out of the gutter so water can flow and the gutter does not become a garden bed. Mesh size, the way it is fixed, and whether it sits over the gutter or under the first course all matter. A guard that holds litter on top of itself in a flat sheet has moved the problem rather than solved it.

Ember guard is a bushfire construction element. Where a Bushfire Attack Level applies to your property under AS 3959, non-combustible ember guards are required to openings and penetrations, with the acceptable materials tied to the BAL level — corrosion-resistant steel, bronze or aluminium at the lower levels, and steel or bronze at the higher ones. The standard also drives metal gutters, a sealed roof-to-wall junction, sarking turned into the gutter, and any box gutter non-combustible and fully flashed.

Some products legitimately do both jobs. Many do not. We will show you what a product is actually certified for and what your BAL assessment requires, and we will not tell you a mesh is a compliance solution when it is not.

Where gutters actually fail

• Corroded internal corners and stop ends. Where water and litter sit longest.
• Insufficient fall. Standing water, silt build-up, then rust from the inside.
• Too few downpipes. Steep mountain pitches deliver water into the gutter fast; undersized outlets overflow long before the gutter is full.
• Failed joins and brackets. Old brackets rusted at the fascia, or joins that have opened with thermal movement.
• Rotted fascia behind the gutter. Almost always found when the old gutter comes off.
• Downpipes discharging nowhere useful. On steep mountains blocks, water dumped at the wall is a drainage and footing problem as well as a roof one.

Profile, fall and downpipes

We size the gutter and the number of downpipes to the roof area actually draining into each run, not to whatever was there before. Quad, fascia and square-line profiles all have their place; on a heritage roofline through Katoomba or Mount Victoria, the profile and colour also need to sit correctly with the building, in the same way the roof covering does.

Valleys get checked at the same time, because a blocked valley and a blocked gutter are usually the same neglected roof. If a valley iron is corroded or the board under it is soft, that is a roof repair rather than a gutter job, and we will scope it separately so you can see what is what.

What a visit covers

We look at the whole gutter line from the roof rather than from the ground: falls, joins, corners, stop ends, outlets, downpipes and where they discharge, the fascia behind, the valleys, and the tile or sheet ends above. You get photographs and a written, itemised quote. If clearing and a few repairs will do, that is what we quote — we are not interested in selling a full replacement to a house that needs two corners and a downpipe.

Price and booking

What moves it: total metres of gutter, profile, number and length of downpipes, how many corners and outlets, whether fascia needs repair, access and height, and whether you are adding guard and to what specification.

Ring (02) 4703 5000 or send the form. Tell us your suburb, whether you have gums over the roof and whether you are on tank water. Work is carried out by established, licensed and insured roofing contractors working to NSW Fair Trading requirements, with a written workmanship warranty on completion.