Be sure to buy several. You’ll want to cut at least one down narrower. 
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If none of the above options work for you and you feel unsafe doing it, stop offering that service. It’s not worth the headache or stress. Focus on a few things you enjoy doing the most and market it as much as possible.
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I didn’t say none of them work for me.just wanted to get real life feedback on the gutter ball product. Now I will buy the one Chris suggested and try it out.
I used the gutter attachment that @SchertzServicesLLC uses for a few years. I put it on the end of a 24 ft extension wand. It works great…but as he said…that stuff comes down on top of you and you’ll have to rinse the house in spots. It’s best to do it when it hasn’t rained in a while so the debris and leaves are dry so it acts more like a blower…but it does keep you off a ladder. I got sick of getting super dirty after each gutter job so I stopped offering the service and focused more on house washing.
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Gutter cleaning has the lowest profit margin of our services but helps us fill the calendar in the winter months (and is an easy add on when we’re there for other services in the spring). We use a combo of three different methods: blowing, vacuuming, ladder and bucket. Each has its pros and cons
Blower
Pros: Fastest, easiest.
Cons: Have to be able to walk the roof, can make a mess, added time for cleanup as we don’t leave the mess behind. You either have to spend time blowing leaves and/or rinsing splatter
*Typically don’t use when doing a house that has very well manicured landscaping/lawn, doesn’t have natural areas to blow leaves to, or there’s a wet, sloppy mess in the gutters
Vacuum
Pros: Safest, allows you to reach otherwise difficult areas
Cons: Slowest by far, expensive (fortunately found a deal on a used Skyvac system)
*We use the least but definitely comes in handy. I’d rather use it than a sketchy ladder placement
Traditional
Pros: Doesn’t leave a mess, safer than walking roof or when pitch is too steep
Cons: Slower than blowing, can be nasty digging through gutter muck, labor intensive
*As @Firefighter4hire said, this method is tough to beat for a lot of jobs. The gutter tool @Harold mentioned definitely helps. Pulling out by hands works better for us than the scoops though
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Got the same one, and I’m waiting for the day it fails…until then, it is awesome for 3rd story gutters that I can’t ladder up to.
I’m stealing this phrase lol! Sorry…
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I stole it from my high school football coach, lol. Great man with many memorable sayings.
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We only do it with other services. It’s more of an add on. We don’t make money driving so even though it’s a lower profit margin I feel like the more we do in one location and higher the ticket is the better.
I find that most homes only have a few areas the really need extensive debris removal. When there is minimal debris I’ll use the shooter tip to collect the debris in one location to be removed. 20’ one way and 20 another way. You just covered 40’ in 5 minutes.we also rinse away the granules because that also causes gutters to sag eventually
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Got that right. No leaves at all in these. Every inch was packed with grit. Bet someone had pressure washed an old roof before this one was installed.
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That’s insane. I’ve seen granules in just about every gutter I’ve been around but never to that extent.
I dealt with the same situation a few months back… a quick gutter cleaning job turned into 2 hours of cleaning that crap out. The home owner said they had their roof replaced back in 2016 I couldn’t believe how much was in there. They also already had shingles falling off/plywood exposed in one spot and a ton of nails in the gutters as well so cheap shingles was my guess at that point. They admitted to taking the cheapest quote when getting the roof done.
I think that’s what happened here as well. I thought “oh, easy gutter cleaning add-on. It’s a 1 story ranch and no trees around.” Nope. That crap took forever even trying to blow it out with 8 gpm. Luckily we were washing the house too, so I didn’t have to worry about rinsing 3/4 of the house for free. I really blame it on those stinking downspout guards. Everything had piled up around them and nothing ever drained out other than a little water.
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How’s that shooter tip working for you? I did the same thing not to long ago and definitely notice a tighter stream. Still curious if it works as well as guys shooter tip.
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Works decent. Been using it for about a year with the 8. Think I used it with my 5 gpm too before that, just different nozzles, obviously. I’ve got one of the other shooter tips, not guy’s though. They sent a 0050 for an 8 gpm, but it’s not as tight of a pattern as my diy 0060. Could be cause I’m closer to 9 gpm doing a bucket test with my low pressure nozzles.
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I provide roof cleaning quotes and part of it is cleaning the gutters out. Most of the time the gutters take 4x longer than the roof cleaning and it helps to justify the cost of a roof cleaning. I don’t break it down because the gutters alone are not much but the roof is most of the cost. I explain that I won’t clean a roof without doing the gutters because you risk sh running over the sides on the little bit of runoff and it just needs to be a hand in hand service. Also providing a lot of value and peace of mind for the customer knowing that the roof down to the downspout drains will be clean and working properly. Then when they see you at the house for half a day they feel good about paying a lot of money for the service. With that being said, it is my least favorite thing to do in this business. The equipment is what makes the big $ not a man laboring scooping crap out of a gutter lol.
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I clean roofs without doing gutters most of the time. Ground guy is following my overspray rinsing the gutters as I spray the perimeter.
Yep, I ran into that on a roof I underbid. Lots of debris from the new roof. I lost my shirt on it but did a clean job I felt good about.
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And it ends up evening itself out down the line when you get someone who pays full price for gutter cleaning and over 1/2 their gutters end up fairly clean with just a downspout or 2 clogged because the last 2 feet of gutter is packed.
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