How do you clear downpipes?

[Chris34]

Just an update, I did the quote the other week, still got to buy the equipment yet.  Quoted £50 for gutters, £70 for fascia's sofits and outside of gutters and £40 for the windows.  Didn't get much reaction but customer said to go ahead but it's a one off.  

There are no trees around the property so I thought it might be straight forward, just have to see when it comes to doing it.

After much reading about different vacs I've decided to just keep it simple and go for the Skyvac Atom.  I'll get an alternative camera from somewhere else and connect it to my phone.  One question though, how many poles is best to go for?  20ft, 30ft or 34ft?  I'm thinking 20ft would be ok but the minute a conservatory is in the way it would me too short.  34ft might be overkill?

 

[Part Timer]

20ft, 30ft or 34ft?  I'm thinking 20ft would be ok but the minute a conservatory is in the way it would me too short.  34ft might be overkill?

But would come in handy for a large Victorian house or a 3 floor block of flats. If you can afford to buy the largest set, and want to do more of this type of business, buy them.

 

[NoName]

If you can afford to buy the largest set,

This a great point - PT makes -  when you buy kit it's nearly always worth getting bigger/more powerful/taller/lighter - the 'extra £' is soon forgotten but you may have the kit for years and years - hence you want to try to buy the 'best' you can afford without spending money you don't have. I've picked quite a few jobs 'cos I can reach windows/veluxs? or high gutters  / s+f+g etc which other can't and you recoup you extra outlay immediately in that one job but get years of use out of the kit.

 

[Chris34]

Did the job today, or at least half of it... forgot an attachment for the hose which meant I could only do the gutters.  I went and bought the Atom.  I did try an Akaso camera but the software isn't suitable, you cannot view the picture in landscape view so the viewing screen is so small you cannot see anything.

So ended up with a gopro3, £100 off Ebay.  Had to then get sd card, sd card reader to update the camera via pc.  Smartphone holder.  So another £20 spent on top.  All in it cost around £700 + £40 wasted on Akaso camera although I will be sending that back.

The main issue I've come across is the viewing of what you're doing via a camera and a monitor screen.  The Gopro is definitely the camera to go for, their backward compatibility support was very good.  It's very time consuming reading through what you need to do but it is possible and their support answered my question within 1 minute via their website chat and sent me an email of how to manually update the 7 year old camera's software to make it usable.  Non of the other camera's are worth taking the risk, just buy an old Gopro and it's good enough.

The Atom is fine, plenty of power and I didn't have any issue thinking it won't be powerful enough.  If anything it was too powerful.  The issue I did have however is trying to see what you're doing via the smartphone.  Although you can just about see, it's by no means a useful tool to help you do the job [in my opinion].  Trying to attach the screen to the pole is difficult and the pole feels like it always wants to twist in a different direction meaning the smartphone is always moving about.

In the end after spending about 1.5 hours setting it all up and using the camera and playing about with it I decided that the camera was just slowing me down so after doing the front of the house with the camera I did the back of the house without the camera and just listened to what was coming down the pipe until it sounded relatively clear.  I probably did the back of the house in 20 minutes without the camera and it did feel better but I didn't like not seeing what was up there.  

I wasn't in a rush as I was just using the machine for the first time so had no other jobs booked in, luckily.  

Having now used the machine I can honestly say that it's not as easy as it looks, it's also very messy.  I emptied the sludge into the garden waste bin and there was a lot of it.  The thing that I found the most frustrating is not being able to see what was going on, I'd like to be able to properly see very clearly what I'm vacuuming up and see if there are any wires up there, covers over downpipes etc.  

I think it will take a bit of getting used to but for anybody thinking of going down the gutter vac route, think of it as a bit like starting window cleaning.  You don't know anything and only experience will make the job easier.

The neighbour now wants all of their house doing [gutters, fascia's, windows] so I've got it all to do again next week, at least I now have an idea of what to expect and can make some adjustments to try and make it better.

The machine was filthy so had to spend another 20 minutes cleaning it all when I got back.  This is something that others will not tell you about, if you leave it then the machine will likely be stinking the next time you use it.  It's all added time, maybe not on the job but it's still time that needs to be priced in.

I can see why you would just do a day doing gutters, trying to bring all the wfp kit with the gutter kit just makes life harder.  If you concentrate multiple gutter jobs in one day then the cleaning at the end will still be the same 20 minutes but with a nice amount of money earned for it.  I wouldn't want to drag it all out again for a £50 job, it's just too much hassle.

I'll make changes and start booking the jobs in on the same day.  I'm thinking of using a separate pole for the camera to see if that makes it easier.  I'm also going to speak to my brother, he's got a vr headset, I don't know whether it's possible but I'm thinking of linking the camera up to the headset and seeing if it makes it easier to see what's going on.

Sorry for the long post but thought I'd share my initial thoughts about gutter vacuuming, and I can't be bothered going back and editing it to make it smaller as I'm knackered, fed up, aching and got loads of work to do .  ?

 

[scottish cleaning service]

I think everyone buys a camera and after the first job it stays in the bag. As for cleaning out vac, we mostly suck up a bucket of water so it self cleans the poles, hose and vac at same time. If you want to use a camera then you use a wfp which makes it a lot easier. ?

 

[Pjj]

Did the job today, or at least half of it... forgot an attachment for the hose which meant I could only do the gutters.  I went and bought the Atom.  I did try an Akaso camera but the software isn't suitable, you cannot view the picture in landscape view so the viewing screen is so small you cannot see anything.

So ended up with a gopro3, £100 off Ebay.  Had to then get sd card, sd card reader to update the camera via pc.  Smartphone holder.  So another £20 spent on top.  All in it cost around £700 + £40 wasted on Akaso camera although I will be sending that back.

The main issue I've come across is the viewing of what you're doing via a camera and a monitor screen.  The Gopro is definitely the camera to go for, their backward compatibility support was very good.  It's very time consuming reading through what you need to do but it is possible and their support answered my question within 1 minute via their website chat and sent me an email of how to manually update the 7 year old camera's software to make it usable.  Non of the other camera's are worth taking the risk, just buy an old Gopro and it's good enough.

The Atom is fine, plenty of power and I didn't have any issue thinking it won't be powerful enough.  If anything it was too powerful.  The issue I did have however is trying to see what you're doing via the smartphone.  Although you can just about see, it's by no means a useful tool to help you do the job [in my opinion].  Trying to attach the screen to the pole is difficult and the pole feels like it always wants to twist in a different direction meaning the smartphone is always moving about.

In the end after spending about 1.5 hours setting it all up and using the camera and playing about with it I decided that the camera was just slowing me down so after doing the front of the house with the camera I did the back of the house without the camera and just listened to what was coming down the pipe until it sounded relatively clear.  I probably did the back of the house in 20 minutes without the camera and it did feel better but I didn't like not seeing what was up there.  

I wasn't in a rush as I was just using the machine for the first time so had no other jobs booked in, luckily.  

Having now used the machine I can honestly say that it's not as easy as it looks, it's also very messy.  I emptied the sludge into the garden waste bin and there was a lot of it.  The thing that I found the most frustrating is not being able to see what was going on, I'd like to be able to properly see very clearly what I'm vacuuming up and see if there are any wires up there, covers over downpipes etc.  

I think it will take a bit of getting used to but for anybody thinking of going down the gutter vac route, think of it as a bit like starting window cleaning.  You don't know anything and only experience will make the job easier.

The neighbour now wants all of their house doing [gutters, fascia's, windows] so I've got it all to do again next week, at least I now have an idea of what to expect and can make some adjustments to try and make it better.

The machine was filthy so had to spend another 20 minutes cleaning it all when I got back.  This is something that others will not tell you about, if you leave it then the machine will likely be stinking the next time you use it.  It's all added time, maybe not on the job but it's still time that needs to be priced in.

I can see why you would just do a day doing gutters, trying to bring all the wfp kit with the gutter kit just makes life harder.  If you concentrate multiple gutter jobs in one day then the cleaning at the end will still be the same 20 minutes but with a nice amount of money earned for it.  I wouldn't want to drag it all out again for a £50 job, it's just too much hassle.

I'll make changes and start booking the jobs in on the same day.  I'm thinking of using a separate pole for the camera to see if that makes it easier.  I'm also going to speak to my brother, he's got a vr headset, I don't know whether it's possible but I'm thinking of linking the camera up to the headset and seeing if it makes it easier to see what's going on.

Sorry for the long post but thought I'd share my initial thoughts about gutter vacuuming, and I can't be bothered going back and editing it to make it smaller as I'm knackered, fed up, aching and got loads of work to do .  ?

Using a gutter vac successfully is an art it takes time to master , we always do a minimum of a days jobs , as you get used to it you will speed up and also feel when the gutter is clear without using the camera , we only use the camera for surveys and checking after the clean to make sure all is ok , a friend of mine lost a camera whilst vaccing a gutter . We have a minimum price of £65 for any gutter vac work like a 3 bed semi that takes us 20 muinits , a days gutter vaccing is a very profitable day ?????