How often to clean gutters, windows and driveways in the Pacific Northwest

If you only remember one schedule from this page, make it the gutters. A clogged gutter does its damage quietly all winter, soaking the fascia board behind it and dumping water next to the foundation every time it rains. Regular cleaning is how you keep that damage from building up.

The two anchor cleanings are late fall and spring. Late fall, after the maples and other broadleaf trees have dropped, clears the system before the heaviest rain of the year arrives. Spring clears what winter added: needles shaken loose by storms, seed pods, and the grit that washes off the roof. A home in the open, with no big trees over the roof, can often run on exactly those two.

Most Puget Sound homes are not in the open. Douglas firs, western red cedars and pines shed needles all year, with a heavier drop in summer stress and winter storms, and needles are the worst gutter debris there is. They mat together, slip through or under gutter guards, and pack downspouts at the elbows. If a conifer hangs over your roof, plan on three or four cleanings a year, or at least a mid-winter look during a heavy rain: if water is spilling over the edge, the schedule no longer matters, they need cleaning now.

Gutter guards change the mix, not the need. Guards keep big leaves out, but grit, needles and seeds still get through and mat on top of the guard itself, so guarded gutters still need occasional attention, just less often. When the time comes, our gutter cleaning page covers what a visit includes, downspout check and debris taken away.

Two cleanings a year suit most homes here. The spring one matters most, and timing it after the spring pollen settles saves you paying to wash a yellow film back onto the glass a week later. The second cleaning lands in late summer or fall, so the glass is clear going into the months when daylight is scarce and dirty windows make rooms feel darker than they are.

Some homes run faster than that schedule. Houses near Puget Sound or Lake Washington pick up a salt and moisture film from marine air. Homes on busy roads collect road grime. And any house under trees gets sap mist, needle dust and the green tint that grows on glass that stays damp. If your windows look tired again two months after a cleaning, your house is one of those, and it may need a third cleaning each year.

Regular cleaning also keeps the cheap problems cheap. Sprinkler spots and mineral film that come off easily in their first season can bond to the glass over years. The window cleaning page explains what a visit covers, inside and out or exterior only.

Concrete, pavers and steps in this climate grow a film of moss and algae anywhere they stay damp, and damp here means most of the year. North-facing surfaces and anything under tree canopy go green first. Once a year is the working rhythm for most homes, and spring is the best slot: the wet season has done its worst, and the surface gets to dry and stay clean through summer.

Treat slippery steps and walkways as a safety item, not a cosmetic one. A green film on shaded steps is genuinely treacherous in the rain, and if a surface has reached that point it does not need to wait for its annual slot. Washing removes the growth and the slick layer with it. It does not stop regrowth forever, because shade and drainage decide how fast it returns, which is why the yearly rhythm exists. Our pressure washing page covers the surfaces this applies to.

• Spring: windows after pollen settles, gutters cleared of winter debris, driveway and walkways washed after the wet season.
• Summer: check sprinkler aim so glass is not being restained, and glance at gutters under conifers during any heavy rain.
• Late summer to fall: second window cleaning before the gray months, and watch for the first leaf drop.
• Late fall: the big gutter cleaning, after leaves and needles are down and before the heaviest winter rain.
• Winter: mostly watching. Overflow in a storm is the signal to act, not the calendar.

Repeat visits are also the cheaper way to own these numbers. Our pricing guide shows what each service typically costs in this area, so the yearly rhythm above can be turned into a rough yearly budget.

Plenty of this is realistic DIY. Ground-floor windows, a one-story gutter line you can reach from a well-set ladder, and a rented washer on a flat driveway are all fair weekend work.

The line most homeowners draw, and we think it is the right one, is the second story. Second and third story glass and gutters mean hours spent at the top of a ladder, often on wet ground, reaching sideways. That is where the injuries in this trade come from, and it is the main reason people hire the high half of the house out while still doing the easy panes themselves. Time is the other honest factor: a full house of windows inside and out can take a homeowner most of a day, and gutters on a two-story home are a project, not a chore.

Do the split that suits your house. There is no rule that says one company has to do every pane.

One Way Window Cleaning cleans windows, gutters and driveways for homes in Everett, Snohomish, Seattle and Bellevue, WA, on the rhythm this guide describes, and estimates are free.