Cleaning gutters

As the weather is finally a bit nicer over here, my husband was out growling at the "gutters that won't gut" again.

We have an odd type of gutter that is what he calls a "helmeted gutter" - it has a metal lip/lid over the top of it. Theoretically the needles, leaves and gunk all shoot over the top of this helmet and the water goes down into the gutter. Of course that isn't what happens... what happens is the slot for the water gets clogged up and not only the gunk but the water goes shooting out over the edge.

He was out there using one of my spatulas and a hose this time, trying to figure out what works.

Have any of you any tips for things that you've found are helpful with gutters? How do you clean yours, and have any of you dealt with any kind of semi-enclosed ones?

 

My fella Bryan (builder) recommends a 4" brush for sweeping the gutter out; he says it protects your hand from the slates or roof tiles! Any good?

 

I'll be anxious to see if anyone responds with a good tip. We installed gutters on our home for the first time 2 years ago and have left them uncovered. We have a lot of pine trees around, and had heard the needles would clog up the screens if we installed them, so we didn't. So far so good...most of the needles get pushed out the spouts along with the water, so I'm hesitant to put covers on them. We do have to scoop out the needles each spring, though...not too bad to do on our house.

 

Well, I can't say that nothing has worked - he said he has found one good solution and that was going along and vacuuming off the edges of the 'helmet' to keep all the pine-needle crud from overgrowing the water slot. However - it is not exactly easy to do, even with an extension on the shop-vac and he thought it sounded obsessive-compulsive to say he vacuums his gutters.

;-)