Is a twice-a-year gutter maintenance plan worth it?

A twice-a-year plan is worth it if your home needs two cleanings a year anyway, which most GTA homes under mature trees do. On the Crew Plan, each visit costs 15% less, so a two-storey detached drops from $399 to $339 a visit before HST. You also get priority fall scheduling, with no prepayment and no contract to break.

How does the Crew Plan work?

• Two visits a year: late spring, after the maple keys drop, and late fall, after the leaves are down.
• 15% off every visit, shown as its own line on the work order.
• Priority fall scheduling, before the rush.
• Free downspout checks each visit, and a photo report both times.
• Each late spring and late fall you get an email inviting you to pick your next date, so there is nothing to remember.
• No prepayment, no contract: pay per visit, cancel any time.

What does it save, by home type?

Prices are before HST. The plan discount comes off each visit's quoted total, so modifiers and priced add-ons are discounted too; repairs priced on site are separate.

The discount is the easy part of the math. The harder-to-price part is the timing: two cleanings a year, each landing in the right window, instead of one cleaning whenever you remember.

Why does timing matter as much as price?

GTA gutters have two debris peaks: maple keys and spring blossoms in late May and June, and the main leaf drop from mid-October into November. Cleaning between them wastes the visit, because the gutter refills within weeks. Skipping the fall visit is the expensive mistake: a gutter full of wet leaves at freeze-up is where ice dams start. The plan's season emails are timed so your booking window opens after each drop.

Who is it for?

• Homes under mature maples or oaks, or backing onto a ravine or woodlot, which fill twice a year no matter what.
• Anyone who has missed the fall window before and found November fully booked.
• Busy owners who would rather get an email than track leaf drop.
• Landlords, who want a steady, documented maintenance record. Rental gutters.

Who shouldn't bother?

• New builds with young street trees and no woodlot behind, where one late-fall clean a year keeps up.
• Homes with well-fitted micro-mesh guards on a light-debris lot, which need a yearly check rather than two cleanings.
• Confident DIYers on a single-storey home. The safe DIY method.

What do you give up by joining?

Very little, by design. There is no annual fee, nothing paid in advance and no minimum term, so the plan costs nothing in a year you do not book. The one real commitment is the rhythm: the plan assumes your home needs cleaning in both seasons. If a spring visit turns out to be light, the before photos will show it, and you can decide whether to keep the spring slot or cancel the plan.

Why does it fit Markham so well?

Markham is two debris profiles in one city. Unionville and Old Markham Village sit under mature maples and willows near the Rouge tributaries, the classic two-clean-a-year canopy. The newer east-end subdivisions in Cornell and Wismer have young street trees, but many back onto woodlots along the Rouge that load the rear gutters heavily. Either way, the gutters fill twice a year.

Gutter cleaning in Markham runs $299 to $499 before HST as one-off visits, and the Crew Plan takes 15% off each of the two. When to clean has the timing windows if you would rather book them yourself.