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Gutter Setup advice or even bother

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Reach For The Glass

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752
Location
Kent
Hi all, thinking of a vac, suppose first question is would you bother?? Are they just an expensive tool that’s unnecessary?

next anyone used blade right or lee martins vacs?
 

1400w or 3000w? Price of the 3000 is £380 plus vat

next poles carbon or alloy

lees alloy poles are aerospace alloy, weight per meter is 406g, benefits are no jamming and will last forever. These are £320 for 40ft.

carbon fibre tubes UK, anyone used them? Modular poles are 195g per meter and 40ft is £420. Only 1mm thick and not clamped just terrifies me of breaking or jamming, also these are 2 meter lengths.

thanks all  

 
Hi reach for the glass,

I'm in the same position as you mate, thinking of taking the plunge and getting a vac, thinking either a gutter sucker jnr 1500w with 38mm carbon poles or maxblast 3000w with 50mm ali poles but then also considering a generator to run them, so I'd also be interested in peoples views and recommendations ??

 
Reach For The Glass said:
Hi all, thinking of a vac, suppose first question is would you bother?? Are they just an expensive tool that’s unnecessary?

next anyone used blade right or lee martins vacs?
 

1400w or 3000w? Price of the 3000 is £380 plus vat

next poles carbon or alloy

lees alloy poles are aerospace alloy, weight per meter is 406g, benefits are no jamming and will last forever. These are £320 for 40ft.

carbon fibre tubes UK, anyone used them? Modular poles are 195g per meter and 40ft is £420. Only 1mm thick and not clamped just terrifies me of breaking or jamming, also these are 2 meter lengths.

thanks all  
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All the above depends on how much work you're generating. I've just spent the last 3 days clearing gutters and grossed £3k+. I couldn't have done this amount of work with alloy poles or a 1400w vac. I know @THL4KELuses alloy poles so he might be able to give you some advice.

Decent carbon fibre poles won't snap, unless abused and a simple spray will stop them from sticking

 
Reach For The Glass said:
Hi all, thinking of a vac, suppose first question is would you bother?? Are they just an expensive tool that’s unnecessary
Click to expand...
This depends more on height and safety. If you're only doing first floor then as long as there's 2 of you then there's no speed difference. If you're working alone then the vac is quicker, on the majority of jobs

 
Cheers guys think I’ll opt for the carbons the are just taper fit 52mm to 48 at the base. 
 

What silicon bends do others recommend? 45, 90 , 135 180??

length of extension lead required on a lot of jobs? 
 

also only 5m of 50mm hose would you recommend more? 
 

thanks all

 
I bought carbon taper poles from ebay for £400 which were okay bar the u bend at top. Recently I bought Spinaclean's rigid carbon fibre u bend and what a difference, nothing seems to stick in it. Will be buying Spinaclean's Elite Poles when I visit the Manchester Cleaning Show in a few weeks. Makes some difference when you have the right equipment and the time you save messing about.

 
Gutter clearing with my vac is the most lucrative ‘add on’ service I do. Once you get the hang of them with a decent vac, it’s quite achievable to earn £50+ per hour (on just domestic, probably more on commercial etc) obviously it’s unusual a average house will take you a whole hour. But I often will do a £40 clearance in 40 minutes for example. And i’m not the most expensive. And a decent vac if looked after will last you years! 

I got the sky vac commercial 75 last year. That one is 2400w twin motor. Best value for money one I think. The Vac was £650 as We already had the carbon poles from the atom before. I share it with a mate so I only payed £325, that was March last year.
I attempted of making note how much the vac would pay back within the first year, I lost count around £1100 and that was a couple of months ago. So made decent profits in under a year. I use it about 3/4 times a month. 
 

I’d start at getting the atom with their cheapest poles. Should be around £600 all in. The atom lasted me & my mate for 3&half years. 
 

 
RWCleaning said:
No, that’s with the poles and etc. The vac on its own was £650. Maybe £700, Might Of been £350 each. 
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Did you have to do anything special to get the atom poles to fit? I was thinking about upgrading the vac at some point and would be great to keep using the same poles!! I’d also love a rigid bend for it but guess I’d need the larger poles.

 
Part Timer said:
This depends more on height and safety. If you're only doing first floor then as long as there's 2 of you then there's no speed difference. If you're working alone then the vac is quicker, on the majority of jobs
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Agree, think if you have, or can get a helper then for normal residential properties using a ladder with you or your helper at the bottom works great (how they used to do it). If you are solo then vac is safer of course, but you have to factor price of the kit with the amount or lack of demand.

 
mike007 said:
Sure, but if you only end up doing the occasional gutter job it is not worth  paying out a lot of cash for  kit which ends up gathering dust in your garage or going on E-bay at a reduced price
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This is why we promote it next week we are doing nothing but gutter vaccing , should be our best weeks earnings ever , I have picked up so much guttervwork I cannot believe it ,never been so busy 

 
Pjj said:
This is why we promote it next week we are doing nothing but gutter vaccing , should be our best weeks earnings ever , I have picked up so much guttervwork I cannot believe it ,never been so busy 
Click to expand...
Aye, its a good earner that gutter work I have found out. You need to tell all your customers that they will need their gutters cleared out every few years and I can do it for a discount because you are a customer of mine. That's what I tell them and get 10 every year because of letting them know.

 
Agree gutter vac hourly is really high if it goes to plan and you have good kit - definitely recommend doing more than one GV job on the day you chose to do them bc the kit takes me a good hour to clean and put and away. Also worth having some extra bits in the van - i take these with me :

  1. gloves
  2. rubble sacks with diameter larger than your vac drum + cable ties (for jobs you can't dump the gutter sludge)
  3. wedges for making sure the downpipes don't slip when you remove a low section - couple screwdrivers work well 
  4. freeflow downpipe adapters
  5. drill / screws / some packing wood blocks / small hand saw
  6. couple whote / black standard size downpipe brackets
  7. towels / sand sanitizer (obviously not available ?‍♂️)

Seems like alot of **** to carry around but once you have the kit in a bag it just becomes easy to load and unload on each gutter day. Some of these items are rarely needed but can make an impossible job into a higher paying and really successful job. Things like the rubble sacks can save the day and i learnt the hard way trying to load a full vac of sludge into my trailer and have it slop all over me. 

 
Sky vac atom is brilliant. Small and easy to move and quite powerful. Great for domestic. I keep it on the van all the time for on the spot add ons. You never see any up for sale second hand. I think that says something 

 
DJT said:
Sky vac atom is brilliant. Small and easy to move and quite powerful. Great for domestic. I keep it on the van all the time for on the spot add ons. You never see any up for sale second hand. I think that says something 
Click to expand...
may consider getting one of these for exactly what you said 

 

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