I’ve quit pushing window cleaning and have begun focusing on gutter cleaning. I make a ton of money at it, but gutter guards are my foe. I was watching a video Luke and Reanna put out where they used a pressure washer on the gutter with guards on them. I’ve thought about doing this, but am scared to death the pressure will mess the gutters up. Does anyone have any information on this?
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The pressure wont mess up the gutters.
Now it can do major damage to shingles. Also the pressure can damage plastic gutter guards.
Use extreme caution if you use a pressure washer on gutters due to these factors.
As long as they are secure, they can take a good bit of pressure. Personally, I use a smaller machine…only 2600 PSI. Using the pressure washer helps a ton with gutters, and yes, depending on the type of guards and the amount of debri, you can sometimes clean through the guards without removing them. This doesn’t work for every job but it can be great.
And I would really stress what @Luke just said about keeping off of the shingles. I’ve seen others completely pressure washing shingle roofing and it can look great, but BIG MISTAKE for them. Just keep it in the gutters and you’ll be good
Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
@Luke, how many PSI is your pressure washer? My pressure is 4,200 PSI. What is the maximum you would use on a gutter?
Having 4200 psi is pretty risky right beside shingles in my opinion. How many Gpm is your
Pump? I’d use a tip that’s rated for double the flow as your pump to reduce the pressure but you’ll still have tons of flow and enough pressure behind it to get the debris moving.
It’s 4 GPM.
I have a 3100 psi. That 4200 may be a little over kill for gutters.
If you touched a older shingle it would cut it almost in half lol.
I also forgot to mention that pressure washing out the gutter can create a substantial mess. For us it’s really turned into a last resort. The clean up alone can really take some time. Plus the customer sees this huge pool of sludge spewing out everywhere. I feel like they probably panic a little lol.
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I’d get a tip that’s says 4080 on it. The 40 is the angle (white tip) and the 80 is supposed to be for use with an 8.0 GPM pump so if you use it with a 4GPM pump it cuts your pressure in half. That should be much safer for working that close to shingles. And like Luke said you still have to be very careful and it will be quite messy. Id be more tempted to remove a couple pieces of the gutter guard and just use a good sprayer nozzle on a garden hose and blast it down as far as you can.
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Great advice. Honestly, if they arent to wet you can blow most of it out with a good leaf blower. Then rinse the rest out with water. Assuming if they had french drains they had already been disconnected.
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This is the one we use. You want something like this or the one @AdamPWC uses.
Not one with a handle. The reason is if you have to snake out the downspouts the handle type just wont work.
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I typically recommend to my customers to remove the gutter guards or not have them installed at all, in exchange for having me come by every other month or so for an inspection. For the cost of having a set of guards installed all the way around the average house here in FL it is close to $500. I usually charge $20-$40 depending on the fullness of the gutters for a cleaning. All this really entails is walking the perimeter of the roof line with a leaf blower, clearing the downspouts from the roof with said blower, and then blowing any debris off of the house or hard surfaces/patios, and into the mulch bed or yard for decomposition during the normal yard work. Most houses take 20 minutes or less.
When the roof is too steep or if there are solar panels that are right to the edge and there is not enough room to safely walk, I do this instead:
I have a 24ft telescoping pressure washing pole with a gutter cleaning hook at the end, with normally has a downward facing single nozzle that I replaced with a T and installed (2) 9gpm 40° tips. My pump runs at full throttle about 10gpm 4200-4500psi. So by using 18gpm it cuts the pressure down to about 1800-2000psi. It is more of a last resort because the set up is longer and I usually only do this when I am going to be pressure washing the whole house anyway since it does result in quite a mess.
If they are permanently mounted gutter guards, either bolted or screwed into place, it will be hard to convince the owner to remove them. One thing that I run into is that smaller leaves from trees like Crepe Myrtles tend to lodge in the drainage holes, then catch other leaves leading to a build up of leaves that end up covering the guards and forcing the water to either back up or flow over the gutter, thereby defeating the entire purpose of the gutter in the first place. Other guards that are clip-ins or otherwise held in place by only tension, tend to pop out with any pressure washing force is applied to them, or if a heavy enough object lands on them (fat squirrels) they drop into the gutter creating a hole for leaves to fall into leading to the clog they were supposed to prevent.
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Why do customers install gutter guards? To avoid paying you to clean their gutters.
Do gutter guards keep your gutters clean? Absolutely not.
Will you eventually have to clean the gutters regardless? Absolutely yes.
Gutter cleaning is maybe on average $1/ft depending on your area. Average installation for gutter guard might be $6-10/ft depending. So why on earth would you install gutter guard, mr customer, if you still need me to clean your gutters?
I’ll clean your gutters with gutter guard. I’ll charge you $2/ft for removal, $1/ft for cleaning, and $2/ft for re-installation. Alternatively I’ll charge you $2/ft to remove and clean your gutters.
Gutter guard doesn’t work. It sounds like a great idea from the outside, but having them is more hassle than it’s worth and when your gutters inevitably clog it’s more expensive to unclog.
At this point if the customer says yes, remove the guard and clean the gutters, that’s great. Or if they say, no, but I’ll pay you $5/ft to clean my gutters, that’s great. Or if they say no, we’ll find some crack head door knocker to do our 2500 sq ft house for $50, hey, that’s great too.
In any situation I’m not getting paid less to deal with more hassle while putting my body at harms way so that you can remain confident in your flawed product purchase decision. Either a customer can pay what the job is worth or they can do it themselves or not at all.
And no, I wouldn’t recommend the pressure washer for any form of gutter cleaning - not even exterior. If they have rotting fascia board, loose hangers, weak joints, or just generally shitty gutters you’re putting yourself at risk of having to now pay for new gutters on someone elses house. Don’t waste your time. Let some chump take it on or let the customer realize that they need to remove that garbage if the gutters are still getting clogged.
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Pressure washing gutters is blasphemy. If you’re going to dump $1400 on equipment to clean gutters, buy a gutter vacuum. There are some great ones out there. If you have lots of money the SkyVac is unbeatable IMHO. We use a 2 motor vac that works just fine, bought for $800, tubes included. It paid for itself 3 fold in 1 week of commercial work, and helped us secure a 3 year 2x yearly hotel contract.
But going back to pressure washing, you’re just blasting filth in every direction. Do you want to splatter white siding with greasy, black gutter gunk? Do you enjoy covering peoples vehicles, BBB’s, and patio furniture with rotting leaf mulch? Do you love when customers refuse to pay you, write bad reviews online, and report your business to the BBB? Cool. Maybe this industry isn’t for you. Or maybe you should just learn how to clean gutters without a pressure washer. 
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I’m going to address this only because it is a direct reply to me.
Roga, this is not the first time I have read one of your posts where you come across as hostile and condescending, nor am I the first person on this forum to point this out to you as @AdamPWC did in another post. I don’t have issue with the congenial exchange of ideas and advice. This forum is here for all of us to share experiences and advise others on what can be done better or give other options to questions/inquiries, but they way in which you phrase your responses reads overly aggressive. So;
100% your opinion and that is 100% fine.
Contra-indicated to this opinion, is if you already have pressure washing equipment and don’t have tons of extra money to purchase specialized gutter vacuum equipment. You use what you have to get the job done as professionally and efficiently as possible. In my personal case, I didn’t spend $1,400 on equipment to clean gutters. I already have a $10,000 pressure washing machine that I buy specialized tools for in order to adapt to various tasks. (I only mention the price for reference to quality and scale of my machine). In this case, the telescoping pole was $200 and the hook was $15. As I stated in my original post, this option is usually used only in situations where it is too high to reach by ladder, too great of a pitch to the roof to safely walk along, or if there is an object like solar panels in the way making it unsafe.
This is my typical method and if I were to gauge the acceptedness of using the blower by other’s in the industry by the fact that the forum creator both uses and recommends it, I would say I am in the safe majority.
Again, paying closer attention to what I wrote in my original post:
I don’t deal with white, or really any other type of siding. Here in Central Florida the majority of the houses are concrete block covered with a cement stucco skim coat. Rarely do I come across a house with anything else, but the few that I do are painted vinyl siding which rinse off just fine without any staining.
The way I read “Do you enjoy…(making a mess and damaging clients property[paraphase])” is where your post really becomes condescending.
Part of being a professional is recognizing what is going to get in the way or potentially damaged, before any work is started. You then take corrective action to prevent anything from happening. Have the client move their vehicle into the garage or far enough away from the house so that it won’t get dirty. If you are pressure washing, you want to do this anyway to keep detergents, dirt, and excess water from getting on the vehicles already. Move furniture under a covered porch or out into the lawn away from the house, etc.
To me this statement is just inflammatory and equally asinine. Had you added this in your other post rather than put it in a direct reply to me, I would have accepted as a satirical generalization. But instead I am going to make it clear that I have never had a client refuse to pay me, I don’t have any bad reviews or complaints to the BBB. However, it leads me to ask has your way of conducting business lead to any of these?
Considering that I am a one man operation with 200+ semi-annually recurring clients including multiple commercial clients including car dealerships, hotels, investment firms, realtors, and contractors. I have not paid for any advertisement in the 20 months that I have been in business for myself and yet I am usually fully booked 4-6 weeks out consistently through the year all by client referrals and recommendations alone. Lastly, add to all of that, again as a single man operation, I grossed over $100k in 2019. I’d say that the way I do things, including using a pressure washer to clean gutters when it is unsafe to do so otherwise, tells me that this industry is perfect for me and I for it.
The irony to all of this is that I share similar opinions when it comes to gutter guards and how clients become too reliant upon gimmicks rather than paying for professional work.
Offering my differing opinion on your other post:
Preventive measures like walking the perimeter of the house with the client and pointing out any areas of concern like rotting wood or loose hangers will allow you to still get the job and do the cleaning as long as it is discussed with the client that you are not responsible for any potential damages. Beyond that all professionals should be carrying liability insurance so that in the event of damage resulting from clear neglect only, is then covered by the insurance.
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My PW set up is only about $400 max. There are cheap ways to be effective and efficient. And I’m always mindful of cleaning up afterwards, never had any complaints about the mess that comes with it.
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I’m sorry you took it so personally, mate. You did ask the question and I gave you my honest opinion and feedback. I also gave you some pretty valid insight regarding customer perception and what kinds of objections/road blocks you might come up against doing it your way. I feel like that’s perfectly valid input to consider and if it makes you feel a little insecure then perhaps there’s something there to think about, but I’m not launching a personal attack on you. I’m expressing that I’ve seen hundreds of homes where people employing the use of a pressure washer have left absolutely horrendous results.
You might be really great at what you do. I’m not trying to devalue that. What I am trying to do is point out a very serious issue that affects the perception of our industry and the professionals that operate in this space. The best that I can hope for is that someone else might some day read this thread and think twice about jumping up on a rooftop with a pressure washer and making yet another nightmare disaster for some poor, unsuspecting customer. I personally think the intent behind my post has good meaning and proven merit.
Do what you want with that information. Ultimately, how you run your business really doesn’t affect me.
Please take note, it’s not exactly “what” you say. We’re all free to express our thoughts and opinions here. It’s the way you say things that gets to be offensive. You get to be highly insulting and condescending in your responses.
When you type up a comment, please take the time to read it over. Word things as if you’re speaking to a friend or even a client. Simply put, speak with respect. That’s all we’re looking for here.
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