Gutter Repair & Drain Clearing in Sidmouth

The Moore & Franks approach in Sidmouth

Hemmed in by Peak Hill and Salcombe Hill, Sidmouth gets it from two directions: salt air funnelling up the front and constant leaf-and-grit wash off the wooded valley sides. The Regency esplanade villas and painted seafront terraces often carry ornate cast-iron guttering that's lovely but leaks at every aged joint, while the 1930s semis around Woolbrook and Sidford clog at the downpipe under the heavy canopy. We reseal and refit leaking runs, replace tired hoppers and downpipe sections, and clear the silted gullies so overflow stops marking the render. The period and seafront work gets the gentle, considered approach it deserves. A Devon family firm, twenty-five years in, fully insured — free quote always.

The grand Regency and Victorian villas set back from Fore Street and the front carry ornamental cast-iron rainwater heads and moulded downpipe collars that are part of the look of the house. When one of these cracks or a hopper corrodes, an off-the-shelf plastic replacement ruins the frontage. We source or match cast and heavy-profile components so the repair keeps the character, reseal the ageing joints, and re-fix the decorative brackets — the kind of work these listed and near-listed fronts genuinely need.

Up on the newer estates towards the Bowd and Sidbury the guttering is modern uPVC, and the problems are the everyday ones: seals that harden and weep, brackets that slip on the long runs, and hoppers that crack where a downpipe has frozen and split. We renew the seals, re-clip the brackets to restore the fall, and swap the failed sections to match. Straightforward compared with the seafront work, but the constant valley damp means the joints are tested harder than they would be inland.

Nearer the front, around Connaught Gardens and the seafront, salt keeps the shaded elevations damp so the gullies and downpipe shoes silt with a fine grit that never quite washes away. We clear the silted drains with the rods, set the shoes back true over them, and test the run through with water. On the exposed seafront properties we will give you an honest steer on how often the outlets are worth checking, because here they clog faster than most of the valley.

Our Sidmouth customers are typically within 25 minutes of our Exeter base. We cover the wider EX10 postcode area and the surrounding villages (The Esplanade, Sidford, Sidbury, Woolbrook, Peak Hill, Salcombe Hill, Connaught Gardens).