GUTTER CLEANING
Gutter cleaning is easy right? I mean every handyman, Tom, Dick, and Harry with a ladder cleans gutters. Heck some use buckets to stand on and a hanging koozie on a rope to hold their beer! I've seen people blasting them out with blowers, sucking them with vacuums, and of course by hand.
Today though we are talking about the difference between that and Professional gutter cleaning. And more specifically how professionals should be cleaning gutters if they are doing them correctly. The first thing to touch on would be the difference between gutter cleaning and gutter brightening. Gutter cleaning is what we are currently talking about, and it is the removal of organic and inorganic debris inside the gutter. Gutter brightening is the removal of the unsightly stains you see on the outside face of your gutters, what we call "Tiger stripes." This is oxidation and is removed with a special set of chemicals and a process we will discuss later on. Gutter cleaning is as shown above in the before and after photo. They are two separate services just like house washing and house oxidation removal are.
The tiger stripes are seen here halfway removed to show the difference.
So, when cleaning the gutters there are many ways to go about it, we use every method except the bucket and beer method and vacuums! Each job is different, different heights, different roof slopes, different gutters themselves. Some are wide open; some are almost impossible to access. Some have gutter guards on them that are failing or improperly installed. So, depending on the job we sometimes clean them by hand wearing gloves for protection, this can be from a ladder or from the roof itself if it is walkable. Sometimes they can be blown out with water from the pressure washer or a blower and raked up after. As stated above they can also be vacuumed out with special vacuums, but we don't do it this way. Most times when a vacuum is used it is because they are trying to do it from the ground. At that point it is a guessing game. "Did I get it all?" Who knows and anyway how do you know it is flowing properly? So, our methods differ from job to job, but they all end the same way. After all the debris is removed, they are flushed with medium pressure via a pressure washer and ball valve to ensure that even the grit is gone, the bottom is smooth and clean, and the gutters are flowing freely. Each downspout is observed to ensure good flow downward. If it is determined that there is an obstruction in the downspout, we have a special "jetting" attachment that will clear that out as well. This is the way!!
If you know you know lol!
If not sorry, keep reading!
This is why we always try to educate people to not settle for just debris removal. Gutters are super important for roof health. When they have problems and back up, they create facia rot, roof edge cupping and roof deck rot, to name a few. All of these problems are not cheap to solve. In contrast gutter maintenance is relatively inexpensive. When you hire a gutter cleaner make sure that you are getting the job done properly and to the full extant. Your home and roof would thank you if they could for doing so.
GUTTER BRIGHTENING
Now, onto better and brighter things! Gutter Brightening, Tada. (Pun intended) Like I said previously in the article, gutter brightening is a different service than gutter cleaning. Gutter brightening is generally done after gutter cleaning, but we do, do it as a stand-alone service usually after someone has cleaned the gutters and they didn't know how to remove those ugly striping stains. So, there are a lot of different chemicals out there that will remove it. We have tried a lot of them and now we actually use a product called Gutter Butter, which we add a surfactant to as we have found that it helps it cling to the surface and aids in keeping it from drying as it is dwelling and actually allows it to work better. So, to remove those stripes and brighten gutters you need to work in small sections and keep it manageable. We stay at around 12 feet. Pre-wet the gutter with water and if it is directly in the sun realize that you are also cooling the metal off before applying the mix. Using a pump-up sprayer with the correct ratio of chemicals to water to surfactant, (Gutter Butter 30%, water 69% 1% surfactant) spray the mixture on the gutter as evenly and minimally as possible and let dwell. We like to dwell between 3 to 5 minutes making sure that they don't dry. If necessary, spritz them with water to keep them wet. (NEVER LET THEM DRY OR DWELL TO LONG!) this may cause paint failure on the gutter and leave you with bare metal! Now we are going to brush the face of the gutter with a medium to soft bristle brush on a pole and agitate the surface followed by a good rinse. Good rinse means rinsing until all suds and residue are gone and then rinsing down the surface below. That section of gutter should be perfectly clean and back to basically new.
These pictures are of some heavily oxidized gutters, and they cleaned up nicely. This process honestly should be left to professionals that know what they are doing and know what chemicals to use and how to use them correctly. It is actually pretty easy to have this go wrong and remove the paint instead of correcting it, leaving behind bare metal. Also, not all gutters are a candidate for this process. Some gutters are just too badly oxidized to be brightened and this service is not recommended. It takes knowledge and skill to ascertain this, and experience that is generally learned from having made the mistake before.
[I once washed a client's house in Lakeland at the beginning of this learning curve that I'd been washing for a couple of years. She had these awnings all around her home that were snap in c-skirt aluminum. they were oxidized and looking badly. As a courtesy to a great client, I decided to grant her a free service and brighten these awnings free of charge. I imagined her glee when she came out after and saw the improvement. I did it all according to the book; pre-wet, mixture right. I sprayed three awnings, equaling about 30 feet and before I even began to brush i could see the paint just running off. Horrified I hurried up and rinsed and sure enough it was a disaster. All three were pretty much bare metal. I of course did not spray any more. I stopped everything, went in and told her what had happened, and that I would fix it TODAY. Called the rest of my appointments for the day and rescheduled and took them down to repaint. What a nightmare! I will always remember that sinking feeling as I watched the paint just turn to liquid and run off.]
We did fix them and returned them back to perfect condition and to this day that client loves us and refers us, usually while telling that story as a testimonial. What I did after was study the heck out of the remaining ones and learned what to look for in the future. Unfortunately, that isn't writeable, it takes seeing and touch and feel.
So that is why I say it's best left to a professional. However, when done professionally it can really change the appearance of the home.
Hopefully, this article proved useful for you and if so, please like it by touching or clicking on the heart above or beside it in the blog section. If you have any additional questions or anything please contact us, we will help in any way we can and answer any questions that we can.
Thank You,
Kind Regards,
Chris
CLEAN 2 PRESERVE.COM
CLEAN2PRESERVE@GMAIL.COM
727-203-6371
Comments