Clean It Up
UK General Cleaning Forum => General Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: rycalshaw on July 19, 2011, 12:17:29 pm
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do any of you lads in the gutter cleaning biz ever do local authority work,(council houses etc) as i said in a previous post there isn,t anyone offering this service in my area and council house gutters will need cleaning just like any other dwelling,surely it would be cheaper to hire a contractor to do the job than to hire scaffold etc like they seem to have to do with all high level jobs these days....
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We did 90 x 2 storey houses and 21 x 3 storey blocks of flats in March for a Housing Association. All done from the ground by vacuum. Was a pretty good job. This type of work they will want doing every 5 years.
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jeeze thats a lot of gutter cleaning, do you have many staff to do that and do all the pressure washing aswell? sounds good mate.
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jeeze thats a lot of gutter cleaning, do you have many staff to do that and do all the pressure washing aswell? sounds good mate.
Took 11 days total 2 men. Averaging 10 houses front and back a day. Pushing a generator and vac around the estate and recording each gutter clear for evidence. 50% heavily soiled and 50% next to nothing in them. Also all downspouts checked.
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what did you charge for each house,did you have to give a hefty discount to secure the contract...thanks
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Thats a can of worms waiting to be opened ;)
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what did you charge for each house,did you have to give a hefty discount to secure the contract...thanks
;)
(http://quarterlifelady.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/can_of_worms_ahead.jpg)
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;D
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just out of interest blast away what generator do you use for your vac? i need one that is small as possible really but fine to run a gutter vac. and how much was it? its got to be a certain kva?
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just out of interest blast away what generator do you use for your vac? i need one that is small as possible really but fine to run a gutter vac. and how much was it? its got to be a certain kva?
It's 13hp Honda. 6Kva I think mate
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just out of interest blast away what generator do you use for your vac? i need one that is small as possible really but fine to run a gutter vac. and how much was it? its got to be a certain kva?
It's 13hp Honda. 6Kva I think mate
Wow! I bet it's a light as a feather :) I suppose you PW guys need the big stuff for all the other equipment you use.
The Clarke FG2000 is fine for me. 2.4KVA but I only us 2, about 40kg with fuel, very compact and cheap as chips. Haven't found a job I couldn't do with it yet.
Re. local authority, I've been in touch with mine and there might be some work there. One thing they asked me for was Absbestos Awareness Training, which is an online course that costs about £40. Sadly most people think that gutter cleaning should happen in late Autumn or in the Spring so there may be a glut of work around those times.
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What section in the council do you speak to regarding this kinda work? ive always hit closed doors with the councils.. :-[
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"business link" do a good course on winning work in the public sector- and it's free. I went on one last week in Halifax but they do them all around the country.
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just out of interest blast away what generator do you use for your vac? i need one that is small as possible really but fine to run a gutter vac. and how much was it? its got to be a certain kva?
It's 13hp Honda. 6Kva I think mate
does it weigh a ton blast away or just as heavy as a 13hp pressure washer? i know bdcs said he had a suitcase generator which is smaller but they are verey expensive.
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What section in the council do you speak to regarding this kinda work? ive always hit closed doors with the councils.. :-[
Try Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm you find the doors open then ;)
Trig - I have the same as blast away for running the gutter vac (6kva, 11hp) as you won't run mine on the 2.4kva which I have also. I have a 1kva suitcase which runs the hot box and drain camera
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2.4Kva isn't gonna run a wet vac that has 3 x 1500w motors. That's a vac we have for sucking gutters.
It's built on a trolley like a washer. 90kg at a guess.
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Can you use a smaller watt vac for gutter cleaning? Some of the window shiners are using a 1400watt vac for their gutters. Is that powerfull enough?
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It may be powerfull enough to remove next to nowt but even with 4200 watts some weeds, trees and grass can take some work. You can always turn motors off if you really feel the need but you can't switch them on if you don't have them. I always try to buy the better gear rather than get by on the minimum
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i just use custys electic at present, they dont mind at all. but for the apartment blocks i need a generator and more lengths of tube!
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i just use custys electic at present, they dont mind at all. but for the apartment blocks i need a generator and more lengths of tube!
I used to use the clients electric until i tripped the electric point in the garage which run there garage freezer and the fuse board was in the house, and no-one was in ::)
So from now on i always use the genny, even if it is only a small gutter clean!!!
I modified my genny onto an old PW trolley!!! Works a treat!!! ;)
Regards
Alan
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My vac is Eastern 3x1kw but only use 2 motors with the gen. I've never found something I couldn't shift apart from one weed in a downpipe over the apex of a garage roof that was so blocked that even Ulrika Jonsson couldn't have sucked it out. On anything up to 30ft I don't need the huge power that the PW guys are talking about. I can clear a gutter completely although maybe not as quickly as 4.5Kw.
I also use custys electric wherever possible, which is 90% of jobs so usually running at 3kw. Even persuaded next door neighbour to plug me in once before I bought the gen ;D
Matt. Councils are tricky as it just depends on who you are dealing with. Don't forget that they probably have 60 people trying to sell them toilet rolls so it's the one who stands out that gets the work. Try letter AND email AND phone call. Another trick is to go to Reception, ask for head of works office (say you have an appointment, they don't know) then when you get there blunder in and say, "Oh sorry, I was looking for the office to pay my Council tax. But now that I'm here can I give you my card for ladderless gutter cleaning" and try to engage a conversation. Quite often they'll be glad you've turned up ;)
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Here's a video we done of one of the most heavily soiled gutters with the suction tubing that I made. We also have some alloy poles but I prefer these for visual effect to impress ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMzMlG-wDlg&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
As BDCS said even a triple motor can struggle, gutters like this in the video just requires patience. Let your vac breath too and not choke it. There will always come a point where you'll need to suck a load of water through your hose to clear the inner walls if you've been sucking a lot of slop.
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That's some good work Lee. I have to admit that I've never come across anything that badly blocked but no doubt I will at some stage :( My system would struggle with the long twigs but yours seems to swallow everything. Very impressive.
Can I ask :
- How did you make the clear tubing and does it bend a lot? How high can you go?
- Who was controlling the camera - was this another operator with the camera on a pole?
- Do you get blockages or does the vac just devour everything?
- Do you charge more if the gutters are this bad?
Really interesting to see - thanks for posting.
Laurence
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That's some good work Lee. I have to admit that I've never come across anything that badly blocked but no doubt I will at some stage :( My system would struggle with the long twigs but yours seems to swallow everything. Very impressive.
Can I ask :
- How did you make the clear tubing and does it bend a lot? How high can you go?
- Who was controlling the camera - was this another operator with the camera on a pole?
- Do you get blockages or does the vac just devour everything?
- Do you charge more if the gutters are this bad?
Really interesting to see - thanks for posting.
Laurence
Alright Loz,
Just before the camera cut off there were some large twigs which had to be taken out by hand. Twigs are the main problem with blockages no matter the size they are. Blockages mainly occur on the inlet to the vac.
We don't have a mounted camera, although should another job like this come up I'll be sure to get one but for this they were happy with me to just dash up a ladder and take a quick picture of each one cleared. Not exactly working at height is it.
The clear tubing I bought off a supplier on ebay in 1 meter lengths and joined each piece together with a 50mm black tube cut into 6'' lengths and sliced down the centre and 2 jubilee clips. Nice a sturdy but still light. I wouldn't recommend more than 2 storey with acrylic tube though. The bend I bought a silicone bend used in the car tuning game.
With this job each gutter run was the same price no matter what was in them. Some nothing, some dust, some just water, some leaves, some mud, some moss and twigs and many had bits of broken tiles and mortar from the ridge-tile pointing.
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Thanks for that - you've answered every question perfectly ;)