What do you recommend using to clean downspouts?
A hose or a bendable plastic stick from like lowe’s or a irrigation system is the simple way.
Sometimes we flush it out and if we can’t do that we’ll use the plastic stick to dislodge the stuff in the elbows of the downspouts. After jammin’ we use the hose to snake the spout or flush it.
We very rarely have to do much. A sure fire easy way to make sure the downspout is clear is drop a small ball…like a golf ball or a rubber bouncy ball that has enough weight to go down. It sound silly but it keeps you from having to carry the hose up every downspout.
I use some tubing(home depot)…maybe 2-3ft. Its flexible so it goes with the contour pretty good…Make sure you hold onto the elbow…I dropped one By not holding onto it…it wasnt screwed in.
We like to carry a hose with a little twist sprayer, stick it down the spout, and blast the debris clear. We jam it into the clog to help loosen it.
How does this work? Looks like thin cable that would be hard to put down the spouts.
It is.
It isn’t.
That’s a great solution Larry. After all fish tape is used to get wiring pulled thru wall bays sometimes past insulation. Should do the trick! I’m getting one for my next gutter job.
I went to my local hardware store (Orchard Supply) and made a u shaped cleaner that works great. I put one of those adjustable nozzels on one end and a shut off on the other with PVC pipes making up the u portion. This way I can put it in the downspout and tap on the upper elbow and not worry about it coming out of the downspout. The shut off also helps if you are walking a roof and testing all the downspouts.
I use a dryer vent brush, and for the bad clogs i usually take the elbow apart if it isn’t rivetted together
