The Best Gutter Cleaners for Removing Debris

You can put on a pair of gloves and clean out those overflowing gutters by hand, or you can make this messy job easier by investing in a good gutter cleaner. Gutter cleaners come in a variety of options. There are attachments that fit onto a leaf blower or leaf vacuum, allowing you to blow or suck debris out of your gutters. If you’re set on handling the job manually, there are also scoops designed to shovel goop out of your gutters, saving your hands. We tested the top gutter cleaners of varying types and found The Gutter Tool, with its smart design and affordable price to be the best overall option. Read on to learn more about our test findings and to find out what to look for when shopping for the best gutter cleaners.

1. BEST OVERALL: The Gutter Tool
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2. RUNNER-UP: Orbit Telescoping Gutter Cleaning Wand
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3. BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK: Amerimax Home Products 8300 Gutter Getter Scoop
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4. BEST VACUUM ATTACHMENT: Craftsman Wet/Dry Vacuum Gutter Cleaning Kit
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5. BEST FOR PRESSURE WASHER: Sun Joe SPX-SRL9 Universal Pressure Washer Sky Lance
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6. BEST FOR LEAF BLOWER: Worx WA4096 Leafjet Blower GutterPro Attachment
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7. BEST LEAF BLOWER KIT: Milwaukee M18 FUEL Blower with Gutter Attachment
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8. ALSO CONSIDER: Black+Decker Gutter Clean Attachment for Blower
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Gutter Cleaners Comparison

Our Top Picks

With all those factors in mind, we set out to test some of the best gutter-cleaning tools on the market. The following tools all passed our tests while also excelling in one particular area or another. 

 

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Our Ratings: Ease of Use 4/5; Effectiveness 4/5; Value 4.5/5

Anyone who plans to remove their gutter clutter with a manual leaf remover will want to give the Gutter Tool a look. This plastic device screws onto the end of an extension pole or broomstick and allows you to drag the debris to one central location for removal.

We found the Gutter Tool to be one of the easiest gutter cleaner tools to set up and use. It’s lightweight but durable, making it easy to manipulate, yet hardy. We felt the spoon did a good job of pulling the debris to where the ladder was located. Whenever we reached a bracket, it was easy to flip the tool over to use the scoop and push it under the bracket.

The only downsides were that it doesn’t come with an extension pole and that it doesn’t actually remove the debris; it collects it in one spot, so we still had to remove it. However, it’s sturdy and ensures that you’re able to reach and gather nearly anything in the gutter, which potentially means less time moving a ladder. We’d suggest an extension pole to go with it, however. 

Get The Gutter Tool gutter cleaner at Amazon.

Our Ratings: Ease of Use 4.5/5; Effectiveness 4/5; Value 4/5

Orbit’s telescoping house gutter cleaning wand is quite possibly the simplest approach to gutter cleaning, requiring nothing more than a garden hose. This wand has a telescoping section that extends from 40 to 70 inches, allowing you to reach lower gutters, like those on ranch or Cape-style homes, from the ground. It also features a built-in nozzle and an adjustable arm, both of which you can set to the correct angle.

When testing the Orbit, we found it to be the simplest gutter-cleaning tool. Cleaning the gutters on a Cape-style home required simply extending the pole and hooking up a garden hose. Adjusting the head and nozzle were both very easy, and the shut-off valve does a good job of controlling the pressure. Our only concerns were that it’s not useful for higher gutters and that its effectiveness will rely on the home’s water pressure. 

We’ve used the Orbit telescoping gutter cleaning wand for other purposes since writing this review—for washing cars and trucks, as well as an RV roof. It can even be used for watering plants if the pressure remains low enough. It’s extremely handy to have around. 

Get the Orbit gutter cleaner at Amazon or Ace Hardware.

Our Ratings: Ease of Use 3.5/5; Effectiveness 4/5; Value 4.5/5

The Amerimax Home Products 8300 Gutter Getter scoop offers a budget-friendly option for cleaning out gutters without cleaning out your bank account. This plastic scoop features a flexible tip that improves its fit in the gutter as well as a high handle to keep hands out.

The Gutter Getter scoop is easy to use. It can hold a lot of debris at one time, and we found that pinching the sides of the scoop together helped minimize spilling when removing it from the gutter. We liked that the tip conformed to fit the gutter, but it isn’t particularly sturdy. While this gutter scoop held up during testing, it’s made from thin plastic that probably won’t survive more than a few gutter cleanings. That’s not a huge issue given how affordably priced this scoop is. 

This is also a tool that we’ve found to be quite handy for other jobs. We’ve used it for spreading salt on the walkway in the winter, removing debris from crevices around the house, and cleaning up peaches that fell from the tree and were rotting on the ground. 

Get the Amerimax Home Products gutter cleaner at Amazon or The Home Depot.

Our Ratings: Ease of Use 3.5/5; Effectiveness 5/5; Value 5/5

DIYers can make the most of their wet/dry vacuum with this gutter-cleaning kit from Craftsman. This four-piece kit comes with two 18-inch extension wands, a hooked gutter nozzle, and a blower nozzle for concentrating the shop vac’s blower volume. It will fit a wet/dry vac with a 2.5-inch outlet, so it’s compatible with most shop vac extensions to reach a bit higher than the kit alone allows.

This kit from Craftsman was one of our favorite surprises in testing. We hooked it up to a 5.5-horsepower wet/dry vac’s exhaust and found that it was incredibly effective at blowing leaves and debris out of the gutter, especially with the restrictive nozzle that comes in the kit. It was a little clumsy to use, and it might not be suitable for use on a ladder (not with a powerful vacuum, at least), but it was very easy to set up. It also felt like it could serve other purposes, such as vacuuming in vents or other nooks where a standard vacuum won’t reach.

One note to add: While it’s designed to work on the exhaust port of the vacuum, technically, this attachment can work with the vacuum port as well. It can suck up all of the leaves and debris, helping keep the mess to a minimum. We found this to actually be the more practical use, and the sections are far less likely to come apart.  

Get the Craftsman gutter cleaner at Amazon or Ace Hardware.

Our Ratings: Ease of Use 4/5; Effectiveness 5/5; Value 4.5/5

The Sun Joe SPX-SRL9 Sky Lance has everything necessary to turn almost any pressure washer into a gutter-cleaning machine. This kit comes with three wands that attach to each other with double O-rings and male and female threads. It also comes with its own trigger gun as well as a shoulder strap, a 30-degree nozzle, and two angled adapters. It can operate as a 3-foot wand, 6-foot wand, or 9-foot wand—whichever height you require. 

The Sun Joe is rated for use with pressure washer outputs between 1,800 and 4,000 psi. The user just has to remove the pressure washer’s existing gun from its hose and attach the Sun Joe in its place. 

We’ve tested quite a few gutter cleaners, and the Sun Joe is certainly the highest quality. The wands have a heavy-duty build, and the threaded attachments are a rarity (most just use quarter-inch quick connects). While the design makes this pressure washer attachment sturdy, it also leads to quite a heavy tool that might be unwieldy for some users (mainly when all three sections of the wand are connected). However, it comes with a shoulder strap and does a great job of cleaning the gutters thanks to the 30-degree nozzle and angle adapters. 

Get the Sun Joe gutter cleaner at Amazon or Walmart.

Our Ratings: Ease of Use 3/5; Effectiveness 4/5; Value 4/5

The Worx WA4096 Leafjet Blower GutterPro attachment might be a great choice for folks who’d prefer to blow their leaves out of their gutters rather than spray or climb. It comes with four extension tubes, an angled elbow that serves as the nozzle, and a universal adapter that fits all leaf blower brands with nozzles up to 5 inches.

The Worx Leafjet kit’s extension tubes attach by screwing and locking together, helping prevent them from blowing off. The same is true for the elbow nozzle, so users don’t have to worry about the end of their gutter cleaner popping off and landing on the roof. The entire set allows for up to 11 feet of reach. 

The Worx solves the biggest issue we’ve found with blower attachments: They blow off. Rather than use duct tape like we have in the past, we could screw these tubes together and lock them in so they could take all of the pressure the leaf blower could produce without coming loose. The universal adapter is a little flimsy to deal with, as it’s a nylon boot that cinches down on the leaf blower, but it does the trick. However, we found we had to hold the leaf blower in one hand and the extension tubes in the other; this was somewhat awkward and did tire the shoulders after a while. 

Get the Worx gutter cleaner at Target. 

Our Ratings: Ease of Use 4/5; Effectiveness 5/5; Value 4/5

This dynamic duo is a great option for anyone looking for a quick way to clean their gutters. This gutter cleaning kit includes an M18 FUEL lithium ion brushless cordless handheld blower along with a gutter cleaning attachment, giving you everything you need to clean your gutters. 

All of the pieces screw on by hand and the attachment snaps into the blower. Putting the whole thing together took minutes. Once together, the gutter cleaning extension is sturdy with little bowing from base to tip. The M18 blower that comes with it weighs less than 6 pounds without a battery, making the whole rig easier to lift than other heavier options we tested. 

This kit also strikes the right balance when it comes to power. The blower’s 120 MPH max air speed is just enough to clean out gutters without producing so much force that you need to work your arms and core to keep the tip of the cleaner attachment from pushing out of the gutter. There’s also a cruise control on the blower, so you can modulate the air speed without having to keep your fingers on the trigger.

Our only gripe was that we found its roughly 20 minutes of runtime to be a bit too short to get in a full cleaning. We recommend having two batteries on hand or going with a higher capacity battery. This Milwaukee kit also comes with a steep price tag, but it’s a worthy investment if you have a lot of gutters to clean and already own a few Milwaukee M18 batteries. 

What our tester says: “This kit is lightweight yet surprisingly powerful. It blasted clumped wet leaves out of my gutters with surprising ease.”—Tony Carrick, Product Reviews tester and writer.

Get the Milwaukee M18 Fuel blower with gutter attachment at The Home Depot. 

The Black and Decker gutter cleaner blower attachment is a well-designed, budget-priced option for anyone who owns a handheld leaf blower. This universal gutter cleaner attachment uses a soft collar that tightens around the tip of most handheld leaf blowers. We used a DeWalt leaf blower that produces a top wind speed of 125 miles per hour and a max air volume of 450 CFM. Even at full power, which is frankly more force than what you’d want to use to clean your gutter, the attachment remained firmly attached to the end of the blower. 

Four extension tubes give it a long max reach of 12 feet. Since this attachment connects to the blower via a flexible tube, we were able to hold our leaf blower at a horizontal position during use, which was much more comfortable than having to point the tip upward. The extension is also lightweight yet rigid enough that we didn’t experience any bending or bowing when holding the tube aloft. 

The attachment’s curved end fit nicely into our gutter and jettisoned wet clumps of leaves with ease. Of course, just how much air force you produce depends on the blower to attach to it. 

Get the Black and Decker gutter cleaner blower attachment at Amazon or The Home Depot.

ALSO TESTED

• The Ridge Washer gutter cleaner is a pressure washer attachment that provides two jets of water for cleaning gutters. Though it washed dirt and grit, it couldn’t blow them out of the gutter. It either didn’t kick them up at all or simply piled them up instead.
  
• The Wedge Gutter Cleaning Scoop is one of those tools that may or may not work for your gutters. For us, it is the latter. In theory, it should be the perfect hand gutter cleaner. It’s 3.75 inches wide, which is about a 1/14 inch narrower than standard gutters. The problem is, the scoop does not account for the inch to 1.5 inches of shingle overhang that most homes have. That shingle overhang made it impossible to fit the scoop into the gutters, rendering it completely useless as a gutter cleaning tool. 

How We Tested the Best Gutter Cleaners

We considered more than two dozen different products when assembling our list of the top eight gutter cleaning tools. We used research, comparing specs and customer reviews, to select 10 models to test. There’s only one good way to test gutter cleaners: clean some gutters. We used each of these tools to clean sections of gutters on our own homes. We hooked up each tool to its appropriate power source (garden hose, pressure washer, or vacuum) or used the manual tools from atop a ladder. While testing each tool, we recorded scores using a scoring rubric to make the comparisons as fair as possible. Scores included categories such as how well the tool cleared debris, how easy it was to use, and whether it was a good value for the price.

What to Consider When Choosing a Gutter Cleaner

With our recommendations described above, it’s time to dig into the finer points of gutter cleaning. This section explains the most important considerations to keep in mind while shopping for the best gutter cleaner.

Types of Gutter Cleaners

Rain gutter cleaning is a potentially dangerous project, as there’s an increased risk of injury anytime you climb a ladder. Some homeowners may prefer to look at gutter cleaning services, but for DIYers, manufacturers offer different gutter cleaners designed to lessen the risk. Below are the most common and reliable tools to clean out gutters.

• Telescopic hose wands are ideal for those who prefer to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground. A telescopic gutter cleaner attaches to your garden hose’s threaded fitting and allows you to reach gutters without a ladder. They have hooked arms that reach and spray down into your gutters and telescoping sections for convenience.
• Telescoping claws offer a more aggressive approach. These devices affix to the end of a telescoping pole and reach down into your gutters to loosen and remove leaves and debris. While these extendable gutter cleaning tools can be a bit more labor-intensive than a hose attachment, they’re able to break up tough blockages much more easily. They do require climbing a ladder, which isn’t ideal for all DIYers.
• Gutter cleaning scoops are great if you’re comfortable on a ladder. These inexpensive options look like large candy scoopers and allow you to reach down into your gutter and scoop the debris accumulated at the bottom. Gutter cleaning scoops are extremely effective, but they require moving the ladder every 4 or 5 feet.
• Pressure washer attachments can make short work of a dirty gutter. These long hooked attachments snap onto your pressure washer’s handle, allowing you to position a nozzle directly into the gutter and remove leaves, debris, and the gutter gunk that builds up throughout the year. Some models even have dual-sided attachments that spray in both directions simultaneously.
• Wet/dry vacuum attachments are another ground-based gutter-cleaning product. This type of gutter cleaner attachment connects to your wet/dry shop vac and works by vacuuming or blowing the contents out of your gutter. Most kits are universal and feature several lengths of rigid vacuum pipe and a hooked nozzle for reaching into the gutter. You do need a stout vacuum to get the job done, however. It’s also challenging to blow wet leaves, so this job is best tackled after a few sunny days.

Gutter Conditions

Before cleaning gutters, it’s worth assessing their condition. If the gutters have seen better days, it might be better to replace them. Certain issues are fixable, like leaks and loose brackets. Dents and holes could be a different story.

A dent in your gutter can lead to a backup very quickly, as it will affect the slope of the gutter, if only for a very small space. This change in pitch will collect dirt and debris, creating a dam that obstructs flow. While clearing that dam will help, the fix is temporary, and a backup will likely recur.

Holes will drip in wet weather and can cause damage to your foundation over time. You can use gutter sealant to patch the hole, but replacing the gutter might be a better option for large holes.

Attachment Length

DIYers who prefer to stay on the ground while cleaning need to consider the attachment’s length. Whether it’s a shop vac kit, garden hose attachment, or pressure washer wand, the device must reach over and into the gutters to be effective.

For gutter claws, length is still worth paying attention to. Most of these claws come as stand-alone attachments, requiring the separate purchase of an extendable pole. It’s important to choose a pole that will reach a manageable distance without being awkward while on a ladder. A painter’s pole or broomstick will help.

Necessary Equipment

Certain types of products won’t work without additional necessary equipment. For instance, pressure washer kits require a pressure washer. To blow leaves out of a gutter with a wet/dry vac kit, unsurprisingly, a wet/dry vac is necessary.

General must-have gutter cleaning equipment includes gloves, eye protection, a garden hose, and a garbage bag for debris. For blowing your leaves out of a gutter, it’s a good idea to keep a rake handy as well.

Keep in mind that regardless of the gutter cleaner, you’ll probably still need a ladder at some point. It’s entirely possible for a branch or large obstruction to lodge itself in a gutter, so it’s not always feasible to clean them from the ground.

Ease of Use

Before choosing a product, understand that these gutter cleaning tools may not all be easy to work with. Using any type of wand, be it for a pressure washer or a leaf blower, does require a bit of skill and dexterity.

These products can be somewhat physically demanding as well. It can wear on you to hold a vacuum blower or pressure washer gun at a height and angle that reaches your gutters while the water pressure or airflow pushes the wand backward. You may prefer to consider the costs of a gutter cleaning service.

Beyond that, choose a product that is easy to set up. For claw-type gutter cleaners, a simple screw-on attachment method is best. For vacuum and blower attachments, find a product that attaches easily and securely to avoid it falling or blowing off while in use. Most pressure washers use quick-fit fittings, so look for an attachment that snaps in easily.

FAQs 

This has been a solid primer on the best gutter cleaners, but you might still have some questions. This section is a collection of the most frequently asked questions about the best gutter cleaners, along with the corresponding answers. For more specific information, you can reach out to your kit manufacturer’s customer service department or check out these wacky tricks for cleaning gutters.

Q. Is there a tool to clean gutters from the ground?

There are plenty of options for cleaning gutters without a ladder. You can choose from a pressure washer kit, a wet/dry vacuum kit, or some claw kits.

Q. How much psi do I need to clean gutters?

Setting your pressure washer to 1,700 psi should do the trick. While you might find some stubborn grime needs a little extra attention, pressure higher than 1,700 psi usually isn’t necessary.

Q. How do you clear clogged gutters?

The tools recommended here will clear clogged gutters by either spraying them with high-pressure water, air, or a manual claw. Armed with one of these tools and some helpful tips, you shouldn’t have a problem cleaning your gutters.

Q. How often do gutters need to be cleaned?

In general, it is recommended to clean your gutters once or twice a year. This is usually enough to make sure your gutters are doing their job properly. Keep an eye on them for any maintenance issues throughout the year.

Q. What time of year is best for gutter cleaning?

If possible, clean your gutters in the fall to remove the excess leaves and debris, which will help avoid standing water in the gutters that can freeze in the winter and cause many more problems. 

Q. How do you tell if your gutters are clogged?

If you can’t see water rushing out of your downspout when it’s raining, it may mean that there is something blocking its path. Also, if you see the gutter is overflowing and spilling water over the sides instead of traveling down the spout, this could be another indication that there is a clog.

Meet the Testers

Tom Scalisi is a full-time DIY and construction writer for many of the largest websites in the industry, including BobVila.com, This Old House, Family Handyman, and Forbes. He spent years working in the trades and industrial maintenance, including cleaning his fair share of gutters. 

Tony Carrick is a freelance writer specializing in home improvement, landscaping, technology, home security, and design. His articles have been featured on such sites as Popular Mechanics, Futurism, SFGate, Pro Tools Review, and more.

 

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