Gutter cleaning and brightening

A customer who asks for gutter cleaning usually means one of two things and has not thought about which. Clearing the trough of leaves and grit is a hands-and-scoop job that protects the house. Stripping the black vertical streaks off the outside face is a chemical job that is purely cosmetic. They share a ladder and nothing else.

Quote them as two lines. Operators who do not end up doing the second one for free, because the customer looks at the freshly cleared gutter, sees the streaks still there, and reasonably asks what they paid for.

By hand, into a bucket, working toward the downspout. Blowing debris out with a wand sprays wet leaf mulch across the roof, the siding and whatever is below, and you will clean all of it afterwards.

1. Scoop the bulk out by hand into a bucket hooked to the ladder.
2. Flush the trough toward each downspout with a hose, watching the flow.
3. Check every downspout runs freely. A blocked elbow is where the real time goes.
4. Look at the outlets: where does the water actually discharge? A downspout dumping onto the drive is why that concrete is green.
5. Bag the debris and take it away. Leaving it on the lawn undoes the job.

The black vertical streaking on an aluminium gutter face is oxidised aluminium bound up with road film, pollen and the residue that runs off the roof edge in every rain. It is chemically bonded to the metal. Pressure does not shift it, and enough pressure to try will dent the trough and drive water behind the fascia.

The method is a dedicated gutter-brightening surfactant, applied to the face, given a short dwell, agitated with a soft brush along the run, and rinsed. It is slow, it is manual, and it is why brightening is priced per linear foot at rates that surprise people.

Leaf guards, screens and helmet systems all have to come off and go back on, and some clip designs break on removal after a few years in the sun. Price guard removal as its own line and put the brittle-clip risk in writing before you touch them.

The honest verdict customers rarely hear: guards reduce how often gutters need clearing but do not eliminate it. Fine grit, shingle granules and pine needles get through nearly every design, and a guarded gutter that has not been checked in five years is often worse than an unguarded one that has.

Gutters attach naturally to two other jobs and almost never sell well alone.

• With a house wash. The ladder is already up and the customer is already looking at the elevation.
• With a roof soft wash. The runoff from a roof clean goes straight into the gutters; clearing them afterwards is the natural finish.
• As a scheduled service. Twice a year, spring and after leaf fall, is the honest recommendation for a house under trees.

Show the customer a before-and-after of one section of the face before you quote the whole run. Nobody buys brightening from a description; almost everybody buys it after seeing three feet of it done.