I offered gutter whitening my first year in business. I noticed the experienced ones on this forum didn’t do it and I wondered why. I felt like I stood out above all the other house washing services in the area. I had my mix dialed in so that it did well removing some/most of the oxidation and never removed paint (except on my own house experimenting)
The second year I was getting tired of carrying a bucket of gutter grenade and 30 ft brush on every job (second year I included it with every house wash). I felt it was a great idea at the time. It worked sometimes…didn’t work other times. It had to be over 60 degrees to work.
Towards the end of that year I dumped it as a service because I was sick of it and never touched gutter grenade again.
This year I laugh at the thought of gutter whitening as my house wash mix gets gutters very clean. I tell customers if gutters are oxidized too bad to just paint their gutters. My time for a house wash is much quicker. And now I see why the pros laugh at the newbies for offering this service. Eventually you’ll get it and never offer it again.
GUYS PLEASE READ THIS (I copied and pasted from another post of mine): it is 100% possible to do gutter whitening without harming the paint, you just need the right product. You need to look at a degreaser that is d-limonene based. Our local Landa dealer has a product they call 409, or you can order something online (http://www.absolutechemical.com sells something, as do plenty of other places I’m sure). They don’t advertise the 409 stuff for gutter whitening, but it is amazing. It’s expensive but you only need about a cup of product to do all of the gutters on a large house, and we make a few thousand dollars off of a 5 gallon bucket. No need to dilute and it won’t melt the skin off your hands like some of the other products.
I’m telling you guys, gutter whitening is SO worth it with this type of product. Unless you hate money give it a try.
I hear you but i would rather just do something like house washing, fence or roof cleaning that is way easier and i know what the end result will be.
Not that i dont love money( i do) but the reward dosent out way the risk.
That’s my point: use the right product and there is no risk. The d-limonene stuff won’t take the paint off, doesn’t burn your skin, won’t damage siding, and is not harmful to plants. We literally use it straight up with no issues.
My understanding is that tiger stripes are the result of a chemical reaction between the asphalt in the shingles and aluminum gutters. To clean them properly you need to break that chemical bond, which d-limonene does without stripping layers off.
It looks like d limonene based degreasers are about 15% d limonene. How much are you diluting it before applying? Are brushing it on or using a pump sprayer? Thanks.
I don’t dilute, but I’m sure you could. I use so little of it on each house (literally about a cup for 200+ feet of gutter, just get the brush wet with the solution and and you’re good to go) and it does no harm to anything that I haven’t felt the need to dilute. Would rather it work as quick as possible, and it is pretty much instant, then save a couple of bucks on the product.
We apply with a brush, we use the same brushes you would use on a car, and rinse it off within a few seconds, if you let it dry you have to brush it again. You can also brush it on then wipe it off with a towel if you wanted (rinsing is better in my opinion).
Does it have to be brushed on? I guess I’m just wondering if it has to be agitated. Not that you’d want to due to the waste and cost of it but could you apply it with a pump up or small 12v and just rinse?
My vendor that sells the stuff in the pic above tells me most people spray it on with thier pressure washer and rinse with good results. Im to scared to try that but would love to see the results.
It would be interesting to see what it does. Clean one section with just hw mix, another with a strong solution of the gutter cleaner, and then ds it to see results. I’ve yet to even mention gutter brightening to any customer but might order some of that 409 that Mike mentioned above just to try. Most around me are always thrilled with how they turn out when just removing the black mildew.
Just go try it on that meth head’s house who tried jacking you around with the payment.
I used gutter grenade with a 30ft Unger pole. If the gutters are 20+ years they don’t have tiger stripes they have a grayish black haze that gutter grenade would work only 1/2 the time if that…they were too far gone. I felt like I was wasting time. I’ve noticed that if I hit dirty gutters with a 1% mix about 3 times they get clean. Who cares about small tiger stripes 2-3 stories up. These gutters yesterday were bad and came clean after 3 applications of hw mix
