Price Depends on your area market... I get from 90 dollars to 130 dollars per single story home. About and hour to clean.
I use a 24 foot extension pole, Werner removable ladder jack that can flip to 3 foot off to the standard 18 inches. Screw on a gutter grabber spoon and you can do 48 feet of gutter in on ladder set. Pull the stuff to you scoop into a 5 gal pail hooked to your ladder and fill the bags below then move on. The ladder jacks allow safe stability from roof or the house siding and allow two hand operation.
Blowers I use when I can from roof top, but you won't find many sweet jobs as you may think! Most will be neglected gutters and have compost and muck smelly water sand and lots of interesting things. Working from roof edge is fine just use the spoon and make piles then come back and pick the up. Just don't do it after a party night
. The ladder is safer roof line is faster, but in my area Terra cotta tiles are the norm and I don't walk those.
Don't forget the roof line eves are going to be filled with junk as well so a good stiff round brush with an angle adapter is a tool box must for jobs you cannot walk on the roof and simply blow off. Blowers? I use electric they are a pain at time but are light weight and much more powerful than gas, they all so fire up with out trouble and have no overhead as the customer supplies the needed fuel.
Again price depends on your area, try a few jobs at whole house cost and see what works best for you by foot or job. We are really talking about not too much money so a few test runs are not a big deal. The thing with whole price jobs is you can do phone estimates. ( if you think granny is going to go out and measure her gutters your wrong) ( if you think Joe knows how many feet worth of gutters he has your wrong) Follow me? If you start running around to bid gutters your going to be loosing money. I can setup a whole October Calendar with customers in 1 to 2 days. Sometimes the one day at home you'll get 10 calls and nail them all from the comfort of your chair.
Good luck! and remember your gaining repeat biz so after the first and second year your in. And don't forget the yellow pages! They suck but the first few years are very important to build your base customers. I generate all my work from the Yellow pages. Gutter cleaning can generate loyal customers so keep the place clean, loyalty can go with the first low baller as well so a little extra goes along way.
All advice here is directed to single story homes! Two story homes are more advanced and require carful consideration before doing. I refuse two story homes and make a respectable living with simple single story only homes.
Blizzard Man said:
Saw this business idea on another board.
What kind of equipment do we need to start a gutter cleaning business besides a ladder and a good pair of gloves?I read on this board about a gutter getter,what is that?Is there a way to clean gutters without getting on a ladder?I looked in the search and found alot about gutter cleaning but nothing really about tools or equipment to use.From what I have read the going rate is $1 per foot.
Am I right or did I read it wrong?
Thank for your help.
Tim
