Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: drive surgeon on March 19, 2009, 11:24:25 am
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hi guys, got my kit to start gutter sucking!! but how do you get broken tiles out of the gutter from the ground? im not using ladders at all!!
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cant you suck the tile so it sticks to the hose, then move it out of the gutter and turn off the vac, so it drops off.
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dont think the suction will be strong enough to suck a half tile to the end?
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Mine sucks out broken tile but not a whole one, and as said turn motors off and let it fall
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Ditto, did one today and nearly had a claim on my insurance :o
Working away when the tone of my generator changed - it kind of went quiet.
Because the trailer was spinning in large circles as it trundled off down the road on it's own. One car driver was watching in amazement. I suddenly found i had caught the sun!
Put the wheel lock on for the rest of the job. ;D
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i have never used a guttervac but from what i have seen i would rather go up a ladder, your problem with the slate is something i have thought about before if this was to fall it could do serious damage to someones head and even if it didnt hit anyone it could easily damage a car or other property.
i usually use ladder to remove large debris and then rinse with with a pressure washer pole but but use a rinse nozzle so dirt doesnt fire everywhere, unless gutter is really badly clogged i only have to go up ladder one climb per side just to make sure nothing that could cause damage is in gutter i may get a camera set up to reduce ladder use more but as i dont do many gutters cant justify spending the money.
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Thing is you generally know when you've latched on to part of a tile and can normally suck it up and drop it if need be or lower your pole with it stuck to the end if you want. Nobody is going to leave their car two foot from the wall whilst your sucking and your unlikely to stand directly under the line of fire either.
If your happy working off ladders then there is no point in chucking your money at a vac.
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Thing is you generally know when you've latched on to part of a tile and can normally suck it up and drop it if need be or lower your pole with it stuck to the end if you want. Nobody is going to leave their car two foot from the wall whilst your sucking and your unlikely to stand directly under the line of fire either.
If your happy working off ladders then there is no point in chucking your money at a vac.
you obviously have confidence in the suction and as i said i have never used one so couldnt comment on how efficient it is, i do take your point about a car not being that close but if a slate drops from 20ft and hits the floor they shatter and fly everywhere these bits could easily cause damage. also a falling slate could easily bounce of the pole your using and hit you even if not stood directly underneath.
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What do guys do when theres a gap of only an inch and a half to two inches between the end of the tiles and the gutter?
The reason I ask is that there must be a solution as it isnt uncommon for this to be the gap available.
Matt
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Easy, i heat my nozzle in the exhaust gas of my genny and squish it to size.
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dont think the suction will be strong enough to suck a half tile to the end?
If you've found half a tile to suck up then either you have a massive gutter or you had better get the ladders out 'cos you've wrecked the roof. ;D
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I've only cleaned a couple of gutters and don't intend to make it a big part of my business so i will do what i have to do off ladders. One question to you gutter vac guys. What do you do if the neck of the down pipe is blocked for example? Do you go up the ladder to sort it? Do you even know it's blocked? Or is that not part of the service offered?
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i quoted a job with box gutters ( the picture on my website) and assummed the nozzle would fit in no problem, but when i started the job i realalised the nozzle wasnt cleaing it all out
i ended up hiring a manned cherry picker and had it cleared out by hand, but even they had problems, the gap was that small they couldnt get there hands in, they had to lift the tiles to clear the gutters
I had to pay for the cherry picker out of my own pocket as that was what i quoted
so be carefull when quoting!!
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This was just posted on another forum:
http://www.google.co.uk/patents?id=ZPo7AAAAEBAJ
The idea for gutter vacs goes way back before I was even born it seems! :)
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That looked like brodex gutter tool lol
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Interesting. ;D
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That cant be right...surely....
A patent issued for a gutter cleaning system that uses suction from the ground,how can this be...patent applied for and granted in the US in the seventies...hmmmmmm.
Well that looks like the one i saw in australia in the nineties must have been an offshoot of the original design in the US.
Interesting though.
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I'll have a stab at this and i might be wrong. Omnipole quite likely have applied for a patent but it's most likely to be the only parts you can't source yourselves such as the gutter spike and power pole. They produce one or two parts themselves but as for the rest i doubt it very much.
I didn't see if any patent was granted on that link? Haven't got time to read it all.
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Yes the patent was issued on 27 Jul 1976.
Omnipole have obviously applied for a patent for the specific parts,which they should do if they have invented them.
But i was allways under the impression (and i can bring past quotes up) that anyone trying to copy the system or use the generic term guttervac would be dealt with under the copyright laws?
I put it to Glynn a couple of times before that i had viewed a gutter cleaning system in Australia back in the nineties,but he got very protective over the facts,but how can you strenuosly deny the process for cleaning gutters with a vac from the ground had been used prior to omnipoles design when according to this a patent had already been issued in the US?
As i say this is interesting and facts are facts.
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Yes the patent was issued on 27 Jul 1976.
Omnipole have obviously applied for a patent for the specific parts,which they should do if they have invented them.
But i was allways under the impression (and i can bring past quotes up) that anyone trying to copy the system or use the generic term guttervac would be dealt with under the copyright laws?
I put it to Glynn a couple of times before that i had viewed a gutter cleaning system in Australia back in the nineties,but he got very protective over the facts,but how can you strenuously deny the process for cleaning gutters with a vac from the ground had been used prior to omnipoles design when according to this a patent had already been issued in the US?
As i say this is interesting and facts are facts.
Watch out, he will say he was living in the states at the time. ;D
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But i was allways under the impression (and i can bring past quotes up) that anyone trying to copy the system or use the generic term guttervac would be dealt with under the copyright laws?
I put it to Glynn a couple of times before that i had viewed a gutter cleaning system in Australia back in the nineties,but he got very protective over the facts,but how can you strenuosly deny the process for cleaning gutters with a vac from the ground had been used prior to omnipoles design when according to this a patent had already been issued in the US
As far as I am aware the UK has separate laws from the USA my dealings have been with the UK Patents office and not the USA one - obviously the USA company did not go ahead with production as we regularly have enquirees from prospective USA distributors.
If you did see the system in Australia years ago then the company manufacturing it has not promoted the system as we sell the Omnipole Guttervac to both New Zealand and Australian forward thinking companies,infact a complete system is on its way by ship as I write this.
Quite why our legal status and patents would be of interest to people that will never invest in our equipment, throughly baffles me.
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back to the question guys :D i did not go on about patent systems????
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Pretty obvous Glyn, when the subject comes up of Diy-ing one, you pop up occasionally spouting patents and implying legal action. Over what? nobody knows because you say you invented it and have applied for a patent. So the interest is' has he got a patent?' and 'did he really invent it?' and 'will i be hounded for making my own version?'
Good chance we could be in trouble for using the term 'Guttervac' that i can see. :)
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Its not pretty obvious really!
Why would you concern yourself in who thought of this and that, and how did they protected it.
I would have thought your concern should be how can I grow my business to a bigger size, whilst providing a better service to my customers and making larger profits.
Given a little thought and planning you would then be in a position to telephone us and order dozens of guttervac systems to cover the work demand of your nationwide organisation.
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;D no thanks, i've built my own.
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no thanks, i've built my own.
Nevermind your one prospect I can strike off our list of future target organisations.
I assume you will not be planning the structure and stratagies of a nationwide cleaning company.
The Directors of Mitie, ISS, OCS etc. can now sleep troublefree.
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Spot on ;D Chill out Glyn, life's too short.
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;D
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Posted in response to a post that has now been deleted!
If I wasted many hours trawling the internet to try and find out who invented something and when and where this had occured then I wouldn’t get anything done.
All I would be capable of is procrastinating on what could have been if I had taken a chance and not wasted those valuable hours to no usefull outcome.
I certainly wouldn’t have had time to be able to manage three profitable companies.
As far as I am concerned I invented the system in the UK in 2001 and I had no idea that others had come up with a similar concept many times over the last hundred or so years nor does it now interest me if they did come up with the idea all those years ago.
The GutterVac has brought serious revenue to my businesses in sales of equipment and contracting and that is my only interest together with protecting it from pirate copies.
A large London patent lawyers was employed and paid thousands of £s to do the searches to find out if my concept had the right to be patented and to then proceed to this end with the best possible stratagy.
This left me free to move on in my life and business with the certanty that i had used professionals to protect my interests.
I find it strange that you should take such an interest in someones elses business when their is clearly no benefit at all to you, except to be able to keep coming up with "I saw it first".
Your point is I think - I saw it first but didnt think outside the box and think of of building one myself all those years ago so I could by now have retired to the Sun 8)
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Oops another reply to a missing post ;D
WE live in the United Kingdom not in the USA - that is a whole different Country!
We in England Northern Ireland and Wales have our very own British legal system even Scotland has slightly different laws.
We do not send people to the electric chair here! and their patents are valid in the USA not in the UK unless they have paid for worldwide searches and patents.
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Glyn,good luck to you for building an excellent business out of this concept,i really mean that,and yes i have no interests in your business,but you are the one who continually states about legal action if YOUR system is copied,but how can it be copied from you when you didn't invent it?
Manufacturers bully people into thinking that because they have put their name to a system then we are to take their threats of legal action seriously.However how can they make threats of this nature when it is plain to see that a patented product existed long before theirs?
As i say you were the one who took the bull by the horns and seized the opportunity to make a business from it,and that you are applauded for,but your patent pending will mean nothing to manufacturers if they know that you never invented it.OK you may have some parts that you have manufactured and no one will be able to copy them,if that is what the patent pending is for,but the concept of gutter cleaning from the ground powered by a vac is not yours according to the US patent offices.
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Posted by sargota Got you this time
Glyn,good luck to you for building an excellent business out of this concept,i really mean that,and yes i have no interests in your business,but you are the one who continually states about legal action if YOUR system is copied,but how can it be copied from you when you didn't invent
Manufacturers bully people into thinking that because they have put their name to a system then we are to take their threats of legal action seriously.However how can they make threats of this nature when it is plain to see that a patented product existed long before theirs?
As i say you were the one who took the bull by the horns and seized the opportunity to make a business from it,and that you are applauded for,but your patent pending will mean nothing to manufacturers if they know that you never invented it.OK you may have some parts that you have manufactured and no one will be able to copy them,if that is what the patent pending is for,but the concept of gutter cleaning from the ground powered by a vac is not yours according to the US patent offices.
We are not in the USA. How else can I put it ........ Anyone please
It really would not suprise me to find out that Leonardo da Vinci first came up with the concept in 1500 as he did with the helecoptor and submarine -
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Yes maybe he copied the mona lisa and claimed he painted it first ::)
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And another post deleted... ::)
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Yes maybe he copied the mona lisa and claimed he painted it first
Good example their is speculation that the Mona Lisa was indeed a copy of other works, The Mona Lisa was also painted by Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol five hundred years later.
Most of the great masters paintings were indeed copies of other artists works ;D
Picasso is famous for cubinism but have you heard of Braque who developed this style first?
Surrealism - everyone has heard of Dali who came into this artistic movement many years after the originators that are unknown to the vast majority of the public.
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Thanks for using those examples of people copying someone elses invention,but i think you will find copyright laws cease when a painter has been dead for 50 years,and an art style or movement is a generic term for a style of painting used by an artist...no infringement of copyrights are applicable for general art styles.
Oh well this is turning into a bit of trivia so probably time to let it die a death,but i think now we know where the truth lies.
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now we know where the truth lies.
Yes in the middle of the night at Gloucester Road Underground Station 2001, cleaning debris from high up ledges :D
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Glyn - you have mail