Gutter Cleaning in Hilton Head, Bluffton & Okatie

Gutters on Hilton Head and in Bluffton fill differently than gutters inland. The island's live oaks shed continuously rather than all at once, dropping leaves, acorns and stringy catkins through much of the year, while loblolly pines add needles that knit together into a mat water simply cannot pass through. Add palmetto fronds and the seed litter that follows them, and a trough under mature canopy in Sea Pines or Hilton Head Plantation can pack solid long before anyone notices a thing from the ground.

Salt air and humidity turn that debris into a bigger problem than it would be elsewhere. Damp organic matter sitting in an aluminum trough holds moisture against the metal and against the fascia board behind it, and our humidity means it rarely dries out completely between rains. Salt carried inland off the Atlantic settles into the same debris and keeps it damp longer still. The result is the dark vertical streaking so common on gutter faces in Palmetto Dunes and along the beach-side streets, and, where water backs up over the trough edge, rot in the wood behind it.

Standing water is the other consequence. A blocked downspout leaves warm, still water sitting in the trough, which is exactly the breeding habitat mosquitoes look for through a coastal summer.