Starting a Gutter Cleaning Business: Your Easy Guide
Posted by Diana Alves on
What is an Exterior Cleaning Business?
An exterior cleaning business involves providing various cleaning services to the exterior of buildings and properties. For gutter cleaning, it primarily entails removing leaves, debris, sticks, and other materials from rain gutters to ensure proper drainage and prevent potential damage to the structure.
What Would I Be Cleaning, and Is It Regular Work?
In gutter cleaning, you'll be removing leaves, sticks, and other debris from gutters to ensure they function effectively. It can be a year-round job, especially during seasons with frequent foliage.
What Exterior Cleaning Services Could I Provide?
Aside from gutter cleaning, you could offer services such as roof cleaning, pressure washing, window cleaning, and more, depending on your expertise and equipment.
Exterior window cleaning to remove dirt, grime, and streaks for a clear and bright view.
High-pressure cleaning of surfaces like driveways, sidewalks, decks, fences, and exterior walls to remove built-up dirt, mold, and stains.
Cleaning and treating roofs to remove moss, algae, mold, and debris that can damage the roof's integrity and appearance.
Clean elevated or hard-to-reach areas, such as tall buildings or ceilings, ensuring effective cleaning and maintenance.
Cleaning and stain removal from concrete surfaces, driveways, and pathways to maintain a fresh and clean appearance.
Removing graffiti from exterior walls and surfaces to restore the property's aesthetics.
Cleaning solar panels to ensure optimal energy production by removing dust, dirt, and debris.
How Much Could I Earn, and What Are the Hours?
Just from gutter cleaning, you can make up to $800 a day. Your earnings depend on where you work, how many jobs you have, and the services you offer. You get to decide when you work, so you can make the most of your time and money.
Your Time Really Is Your Money
Efficiency and productivity are key in this business, and optimizing your time is crucial for maximizing earnings.
Traditional Gutter Cleaning
Traditional gutter cleaners carry long ladders and do not fear climbing on roofs to blow leaves, pine needles, sticks and dirt out of the gutters with a handheld or backpack blower. Traditional gutter cleaning is very physical.
Traditional gutter cleaners may climb a ladder up and down while moving around the structure, or climb up to the roof on a ladder and blow the gutters out with a backpack blower while standing on the roof. Both of these methods are hazardous, and there are United States laws that require certain safety procedures and cautions to be taken.
This is typically a speedy process but VERY DANGEROUS. Approximately 90,000 people are hospitalized annually in the USA due to falling off ladders. The number one reason?...carrying something up or down the ladder, like a leaf blower or paint can.
Time is money and inevitably gutter cleaners look to speed up the cleaning process or try to get a job done quickly, so they can move on to the next job. So we find that risk proportionally increases for a period of time as someone moves from beginner to novice and from novice to expert.
A Safer Alternative - SkyVac
Alternatively, SkyVac is a safer method for cleaning gutters. By vacuuming gutters unto 40 feet high, safely from the ground. Click here to compare the various gutter vacuum systems.
They range in size and performance to suite homeowners, commercial building owners or cleaning professionals.
Insurance
Specific insurance policies are necessary for gutter cleaning due to the risks involved. Workers' compensation and general liability insurance are crucial for protecting your business and employees.
Transportation
There are multiple ways to think about your business transportation needs.
- Will it be you solo, or will you have multiple crews?
- How many services will you offer?
- What is your budget?
- What are your personal driving preferences?
- SUV or Small Mini Van - Possibly use a vehicle you already own, low startup cost
- Truck - Possibly already own or purchase used or new based upon budget
- Low ceiling or tall ceiling van - Great alternative for protecting your equipment but ramp likely needed for loading or unloading
- Open-faced flat trailer - Must have a proper vehicle to tow, easy to load and unload, no weather protection
- Closed trailer - More costly but better protection for your equipment
- Large boxed truck - More costly but offers lots of protected room for your equipment
Marketing
Aside from the actual physical work, one of the most important aspects of the gutter cleaning business is pricing, marketing, earning new customers and retaining existing customers. We find that many people in this industry are good at doing the actual cleaning, but less experienced or enthusiastic about getting the business.
It's important that you use a good CRM (Customer Relationship Management Software) to help easily track all communications and nurture customer relationships. You are likely to need software to manage your business with the back-and-forth interactions, estimates, quotes, scheduling, invoicing and payments aspect of the business.
Optionally, you could join us for a SkyVac Training Day (typically offered once per month in our Sanford, NC, USA facility) where we train new start-ups and existing companies who want to add other services to their portfolio. We charge $50 for this full day workshop. It includes up to 2 people from your group and lunch. This fee is deducted from any purchase you make during your visit.
We've had customers from all parts of the USA visit us over the years.
Please contact us if you have any questions.
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