What starting in gutter cleaning involves
Gutter cleaning is clearing leaves, moss and silt from gutters and downpipes, often with a gutter-vacuum pole from the ground, sometimes from a ladder or tower. How often a customer comes back: once a year for most customers, twice for houses under trees. The aim is to build a list of people you serve again and again.
Repeat work here is thin (customers come back once a year for most customers, twice for houses under trees), so your diary depends on a steady flow of new customers, and a reminder to last year's customers is some of the cheapest work you'll win.
The order to do things in
- Choose your method: vacuum pole from the ground, ladder or a mix. The first costs more but is safer
- Get insurance that covers work at height before you take a single job
- Work out your price per property using time and rate, and set a minimum
- Decide what you'll do with the debris, and what the rules say about carrying it
- Build a 'once a year' customer list you can come back to every autumn
- Set up payments and a diary so each customer is reminded next year without you remembering
Kit to start with
| Item | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Gutter-vacuum pole and vacuum unit | Cleans from the ground and can include a camera, the main investment |
| Ladders or a small access tower | For jobs the pole can't reach safely |
| Gloves, eye protection and a dust mask | Gutter muck is not pleasant |
| Bags and a way to take the debris with you | See the waste rules below |
| A van | Kit is long and awkward to carry |
Running costs to expect: collection bags, pole attachments and brushes, vacuum filters, fuel, camera batteries.
Rules to check before you start
- The Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply. HSE's guidance on ladders and on low-level work at height is the starting point
- Debris from gutters can count as waste. If you carry it away, check with the Environment Agency (or SEPA, NRW or NIEA outside England) whether you need to register as a waste carrier
Also read insurance for gutter cleaners before you take your first customer.
Finding your first customers
- Leaflet streets with mature trees, because those houses have the most blocked gutters
- Offer a 'before and after' photo of the gutter, which customers can see and share
- Work with window cleaners, roofers and handymen who see blocked gutters but don't clear them
- Ask estate agents and landlords for repeat maintenance work
- Post photos in local Facebook groups after a bad storm, when gutters are on everyone's mind
More in how to get your first customers.
How many customers you'll need
Using the example sums in how to price gutter cleaning, about 65 jobs a month earns £2,000 after costs. That's roughly 520 regular customers. Work it out with your own numbers before you promise yourself anything.
Mistakes new gutter cleaners make
- Taking on a job from a ladder that needs a tower
- Underpricing a mossy gutter because the first one was easy
- Not following up next year, which wastes your best source of repeat work
- Leaving debris on a customer's property without agreeing it
Run your gutter cleaning in WorkWise
Remember next autumn: A customer list with each customer's next visit date and a reminder text before it's due.