Scarborough fall: maple leaves, oak leaves, and the sticky last-stretch summer dirt that compacts into gutters and refuses to wash out. This is what we cleared before the first freeze of the season hit.
What we did
Two-person team, two ladders, three hours total:
- Inspected every run from the ground for sag or pulled brackets
- Hand-cleared the seven elbow joints (where leaves compact hardest)
- Vacuumed the long runs with the soft-tip extension
- Flushed every downspout with low-pressure water, confirmed all four discharged clean
- Found and re-secured one loose bracket on the back-yard run that would have torn off in the next ice load
Notes
If you're in Scarborough or Etobicoke and your house has mature maples within 10m, your gutters are filling twice a year minimum, once in late October, once in mid-spring. Skipping the fall round is what causes ice-dam damage in February.
