Clean It Up

UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Plankton on March 06, 2017, 12:44:40 am

Title: Commercial guttering, needing better vac filter. (Changed title)
Post by: Plankton on March 06, 2017, 12:44:40 am
Everyone's seen a video of domestic gutter cleaning with a vac a sometimes you probably feel you could clean them with your eyes closed. but this commercial gutter I was cleaning on Sunday was going to be to much for the small domestic gutter vac nozzles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_EtulcI0mE&t=67s

I ended up ditching the poles.

Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing bigger vac nozzle!
Post by: Shrek on March 06, 2017, 07:20:43 am
Is your vacuum not powerful enough? Looks like it's not even sucking up the water  ??? ???
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing bigger vac nozzle!
Post by: chris turner on March 06, 2017, 07:36:17 am
Is your vacuum not powerful enough? Looks like it's not even sucking up the water  ??? ???

Shreks right, the sludge in that gutter should be easily sucked up by a decent vac.
What vac are you using Alan??
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing bigger vac nozzle!
Post by: Ian101 on March 06, 2017, 07:50:20 am
my volume was off so looked like your hoover wasn't turned on.
blocked poles or hoover inlet.
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing bigger vac nozzle!
Post by: Plankton on March 06, 2017, 08:36:36 am
The vac was used to clean the gutter and has plenty of power. It's the shape of the nozzle that was the problem.
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing bigger vac nozzle!
Post by: Smurf on March 06, 2017, 11:19:39 am
The vac was used to clean the gutter and has plenty of power. It's the shape of the nozzle that was the problem.

The size of the nozzle is irrelevant if the wet vac is not working as it should. Going by that vid it don't seem to be sucking up hardly anything. Wetvac filters don't cope very well at all with large amounts of wet sludge..

On the other hand  If you had decent suction it  would have that cleared in no time even using that size nozzle surely? 

What size/type wet vac are you using?

Mind on jobs like that instead of messing about with a vac it can be a lot quicker to jet wash em through. Then just clean up the mess afterwards... lol
 
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing bigger vac nozzle!
Post by: Plankton on March 06, 2017, 06:22:26 pm
Mind on jobs like that instead of messing about with a vac it can be a lot quicker to jet wash em through. Then just clean up the mess afterwards... lol No thanks :)

In actual fact I ditched the filter for the first time and just slotted an old mesh filter between the ball valve and the motor to prevent the crud blowing the motors.
The vac cleared 8 bags of muck from the gutter, the problem was the nozzle shape if I could be bothered I would take a photo of the different nozzles I use but they have been cut and (bashed) to use on your typical half round guttering. 

It was far easier to clean from the ladder or walk along the roof whilst using the vac without any nozzles.
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing bigger vac nozzle!
Post by: Dave Willis on March 06, 2017, 07:09:32 pm
No suction there bud. If you had suction you could rest the pole on the gutter and flick your wrist so that the nozzle went from bottom to top. Less effort then.

That vac wouldn't pull the skin of a rice pudding!
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing better vac filter. (Changed title)
Post by: Plankton on March 07, 2017, 07:23:01 pm
Right... I'll put my hands up here.
The filter was removed after the initial test! Although I did check for suction as seen in the clip it clearly wasn't good enough for this job. I probably would have got away with it on a light domestic job but not in this case.
The filter hadn't been cleaned before use and was saturated with muck so now I've thought about it I remember throwing it into the trailer in disgust.
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing better vac filter. (Changed title)
Post by: Smurf on March 07, 2017, 07:54:06 pm
Told you so springs to mind. lol

Have a look through your old guttervac posts and you will find the answer you are looking for from nick day.
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing better vac filter. (Changed title)
Post by: Plankton on March 07, 2017, 08:25:55 pm
Is that he green pad sewn into the bottom of the filter?
Only other thing I can remember is me saying the karcher vac was poop and Nick saying that they have to be optimised correctly. I still choose to differ and prefer using a three motor vac. As it turns out I've not progressed with the filter issue!
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing better vac filter. (Changed title)
Post by: Nick Day on March 07, 2017, 08:38:23 pm
The problem with the bag filters is that when they get wet the fibres expand and cut off the suction. If you sew in a piece of green scouring pad it solves the problem. I did have one guy who managed to block the green pad....he cleaned his chimney with it!!
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing better vac filter. (Changed title)
Post by: Plankton on March 07, 2017, 08:40:44 pm
Just for the record that old video with the pressure washer gutter attachment was purely to gauge a reaction. In one post people weren't to bothered and there was no real complaints but when you actually see it in action it's a different story. One of the issues was that the water would get in under the tiles, but as this was carried out on my own house and I had checked for this whilst doing something else there was no sign of water ingress.

In the end the video kind of proved that it wasn't the way to clean gutters when my wife shouted ALANNNNN!

Hopefully this is what was referred to in Smurfs post above and I've not wasted my time typing this...
Title: Re: Commercial guttering, needing better vac filter. (Changed title)
Post by: Plankton on March 07, 2017, 08:49:58 pm
The problem with the bag filters is that when they get wet the fibres expand and cut off the suction. If you sew in a piece of green scouring pad it solves the problem. I did have one guy who managed to block the green pad....he cleaned his chimney with it!!
I think that's the only decent answer I got when I asked about this before. What I would need to do is buy a new filter and modify it before use as nobody will touch this filthy thing and as I've just bought a new washing machine there's a ban on washing micro fibres let alone a gutter vac filter.
Surely there's something cost effective you can just cover the motor with?