What the Ladder Sees: A Cleaner's Notes on the Outside of Your House

There's a particular view of a house that only really exists at the top of a ladder. You see the back of the gutter, the top edge of the fascia, the corner where the render meets the frame, the moss that's made itself at home on the north-facing wall. Homeowners rarely get up there. We're up there most weeks.

Let's be clear about what this is and isn't. We're window cleaners, not surveyors, and nothing below is a property inspection. But after enough years of looking at the outside of houses, certain things start to stand out — and most of them are the sort of jobs that cost a tenner now and a fortune in February.

The gutter is always the first thing we look at

It's the highest, most neglected, most consequential bit of the house. Three things catch the eye.

Seedlings. If there's grass or a small buddleia growing out of the gutter line, that channel has been full of compost for at least a season. It's not a disaster, but it's a sign water is going over the front instead of down the pipe.

Overflow staining. Look for a pale or greenish track running down the render or brickwork beneath a gutter joint. That's the watermark of a gutter that spills every time it rains hard, and it's usually a blocked downpipe or a joint that's pulled apart.

Sagging brackets. Gutters should run in a straight line with a gentle fall. If a section dips or a bracket has pulled away from the fascia, water pools in the low spot, and the weight makes it worse over each winter.

The drips that never quite stop

Overflow pipes, condensate pipes and boiler outlets that discharge onto paving or into a wall are surprisingly common. The giveaway is a patch of dark, permanently damp brickwork, or green algae on a path that never dries. It's worth knowing where that water is going, because it's almost always going somewhere it shouldn't.

We also see white, salty bloom on brickwork — efflorescence — which often means water is getting into the wall and evaporating back out through the face. Harmless in itself; sometimes a hint that something above needs attention.

Seals, mastic and the slow work of weather

The band of silicone around a window frame takes a real beating. When we're cleaning close up, we're looking for:

• silicone that has shrunk back from the frame, leaving a hairline gap
• rubber gaskets that have gone hard, perished or pulled out of their channel at the corners
• cracked or missing mastic under a sill, where water then sits against the wall
• on timber frames, flaking paint along the bottom rail and sill, which is exactly where water lingers

A gap of a couple of millimetres doesn't look like much. Over a wet British winter, it's enough to let water into the frame, saturate the timber, and start the rot that ends with a new window rather than a new bead of sealant.

Misted panes and what they mean

If condensation is trapped between the two sheets of a double-glazed unit, the sealed cavity has failed. No cleaner, descaler or polish will fix it — the unit needs replacing, though the frame is usually fine. It's worth flagging early because a single failed unit is a straightforward job, while a whole elevation of them is a bigger conversation.

Condensation on the inside of a room is a different matter — ventilation, usually — and we can't diagnose that from outside. We'd only ever mention it as something worth a look.

Paint, render and the north-facing wall

Two elevations of the same house can age at completely different rates. The north-facing wall stays damp longer, so moss, algae and black lichen settle in. That's mostly cosmetic, but persistent green growth holds moisture against render and masonry, and freezing winters don't help.

Cracks deserve a mention here. Hairline shrinkage is normal and usually harmless. A crack you can get a coin into, or one that runs diagonally from the corner of a window opening, is worth showing to someone who knows what they're looking at.

Drainage, gullies and standing water

Outside drains block with leaves, grit and moss off the roof. The clues are simple: a gully grate hidden under debris, a downpipe that trickles rather than flows, or a puddle that's still there three days after rain. Standing water near a wall or an extension is the thing to take seriously.

On uPVC windows, there are small drainage slots at the bottom of the frame — the weep holes. When they clog, water sits in the frame instead of draining, and eventually finds its way inside. It's a thirty-second job with a cocktail stick, and almost nobody does it.

When it's worth picking up the phone

Most of what we spot is small and cheap to sort out. A handful of things aren't:

1. Water actually coming into the house, or a damp patch that's growing.
2. A gutter bracket pulling away from the fascia, or a fascia that's soft to the touch.
3. A structural crack, a bowing wall, or slipped roof tiles and flashing.
4. Anything to do with a flue, a chimney or a gas appliance.

For those, you want a roofer, a builder or a surveyor — not us. For everything else, the advice is the same: note it, get a quote, and do it before the cold arrives rather than after.

A habit worth borrowing

Think of it as a seasonal MOT. Late autumn is the ideal moment: gutters cleared before the worst of the rain, seals checked before the frost, paint touched in before the timber suffers. It takes an afternoon once a year and quietly saves you a lot of money.

We'll always mention anything obvious while we're working — not to worry you, just because we're up there anyway and it seems a shame not to say.