“She’ll be right, mate” is a common Aussie refrain, but when it comes to home maintenance and ladders, all too often things don’t turn out so right.
Falls from ladders account for thousands of accidents around the home every year, and unfortunately, not everyone gets up and walks away afterwards.
On average, 19.4 Australians –mostly men aged over 50 –die every year after falling from a ladder.
Precise numbers on serious injuries and disabilities caused by ladder falls are hard to come by, but they run into the hundreds, if not the thousands.
In light of such sobering statistics, it’s clear that the more you can do to avoid using ladders, the better. Which is why it’s important to minimise any at-height maintenance tasks around your home.
Why worry about gutter maintenance?
One of the key areas for maintenance around your home is your gutters, which almost always require a ladder to reach them.
Turning a blind eye to your gutters might seem like a solution to this problem, but it isn’t. Gutter maintenance is vital in order to prevent flooding, pest infestation and other problems that can be caused by clogged and overflowing gutters. But what if you could minimise the need to maintain your gutters in the first place?
An alternative to gutter maintenance?
One recognised solution for preventing clogged and overflowing gutters is to use over-the-gutter gutter mesh.
Over-the-gutter gutter mesh like Blue Mountain Co Gutter Mesh forms a physical barrier that prevents leaves and debris from entering your gutters. For added benefits, the mesh is installed in line with the angle of your roof to create a continuous slope, helping to maximise leaf blow-off from the wind.
Together, these features help stop leaves and debris from entering or clogging your gutters, significantly reducing the need for maintenance and thus minimising the number of times you need to get up a ladder each year in order to maintain your gutters.
In fact, because your gutters need less regular cleaning, it’s also easier to justify the expense of professional gutter maintenance, thus avoiding using ladders at all.
No wonder, then, that in 2014, Monash University’s Injury Research Institute actually recommended that legislative bodies consider mandating the installation of gutter mesh in domestic building design codes for the purpose of reducing home ladder-related injuries and deaths.
Selecting the right gutter mesh
Leaves come in different shapes and sizes, so when you’re selecting gutter mesh for your home, you need to choose a product that’s designed to keep out the kinds of leaves found in your area.
Gutter mesh that lets leaves in is hardly going to prevent clogging and overflowing. In fact, it could even create a more serious gutter maintenance problem, because while the leaves might easily get into your gutters, you won’t be able to easily get in under the mesh to remove them. As such, it’s important that you select gutter mesh with an appropriate aperture (hole size) for keeping out the smaller leaves in your area.
Blue Mountain Co’s Mesh Matcher tool helps you determine which kinds of gutter mesh are best suited to keeping leaves out of your gutters and minimising the need for gutter maintenance around your home. It’s fast and easy to use, so why not click here to get started?