[hank jr]

Get both

https://jetmac.co.uk/shop?olsPage=products%2Floncin-14-horse-power-tornado-package-huge-output-21-litres-minute&page=2

https://www.guttercleaningsystems.co.uk/product/carbon-fibre-composite-gutter-vacuum-3000-watt-30ft/

Or you could pick up second hand stuff much cheaper.

I bought my 3000w vac and poles for 300 and I had a gx390 with whirlaway for 600.

However if you must get one I would go with gutters this time of year and think about pw come spring.

Having said that if you are a one man band it's not worth the faff. Window cleaning is regular work stuff like this needs constant advertising to fill your diary.

I've done car valeting, pw, gutters and carpet cleaning. Bought and sold the lot to stick with windows. More consistent income, no van full of crap and cheaper.

That's an interesting answer. You've done it all and gone back to windows. Must be quite tough getting work then.

The gutter vac looks decent and half the price of a skyvac, and the pressure washing set up looks decent too. Thanks for sharing

I wouldn't say tough so much but what I mean is once you are full with Windows it's easy. You have work everyday, you don't really need to advertise and you just turn up and clean. It runs itself to an extent.

If you are pushing add on work, some will come without doing much but you need to be proactive with advertising and you have to go out to quote and book jobs in on certain days etc.

Then you have loads of clutter in the van, pw and gutters is a filthy job and quite often the van will be plastered in shyte.

I just found windows more reliable, consistent and hassle free.

I find I get bored just doing windows and I think that's my problem. I like to mix it up.

[nathankaye]

Hiya, hows it gone over the 2 yrs since youve switched?

I would do both but perhaps concentrate on pressure washing if you know theres a market in your area for it, as in good prices.  You will easily make your money back.
Rutland pumps is a good starting point.   I believe around 1500 if memory serves well (or a bit more) will get you a good machine between 15 - 21 lpm with good specs, turbo and perhaps a fsc on top.
Then research well or try a course, but perhaps research and gain knowledge on the general cleaning part of this forum.  Yet dont mention your a window cleaner lol, they tend not to like that.

I was thinking of gutter vac as I had an awkward gutter clean the other day.  This particular roof over hang came out as far as the bay window and my ladders didnt have the height for that. (Whereas on normal house a stand away would have worked well.) Yet you then have to think of a power source if customers are not in and so a generator would be required which ups the price.

Hi Nathan, I'm all good mate thanks for asking. Wow were did two years go?

Anyway, the wfp was a good swap for grad ha ha, I don't think I'd like to go back to doing grad after using the brush.

I just want to change things up a bit for the new year.

Good point about the power supply if customer's sent home. Sod buying a generator as well.

I've had awkward gutter jobs that I couldn't do off the ladder in the past were a vac would of been able to get it....

How's your window empire?

Yep, time flies! 
Im over 4 yrs in and still enjoying it!  Wfp brought a new lease of life to it for me, though I have some days where the boredom kicks in.  Thats why, like you are now, made the jump into expanding the cleaning services.

I still get a chunk of time during the month which I either use as a flow over if I'm running behind for any particular reason. Or its for family time but if not, thats when I book the pressure or soft washing jobs in.   
Window cleaning has its advantages of a steady stream of finance etc but it can become tedious cant it.  Pressure washing breaks that boredom and has its own great advantages;
You get job satisfaction straight away (watching the true colour of slabs n drives appear in stark contrast to the grime).
Working with a turbo nozzle never gets boring, i love the thing!  Fsc are obviously great n all but a turbo is like a man and his toy       (just read that back and i know some may make an innuendo out of that, but that was not intended, i just meant men n power tools, whats not to like)
All my jobs are residential and you have your window empire to target first and up sell.  They know you and trust you, so your half way there to win the work. So getting some jobs to pay for the equipment isnt too hard.
Yet the best thing for me is getting paid a good amount of money as soon as the job is completed.  Ive not had a customer yet that hasnt simply handed the money over on completion!  No chasing your money up.

Its a great way to have a small break from the glass

[Slacky]

Definitely pressure washer. 100%.

[hank jr]

 Pressure washing breaks that boredom and has its own great advantages;
You get job satisfaction straight away (watching the true colour of slabs n drives appear in stark contrast to the grime).
Working with a turbo nozzle never gets boring, i love the thing!  Fsc are obviously great n all but a turbo is like a man and his toy       (just read that back and i know some may make an innuendo out of that, but that was not intended, i just meant men n power tools, whats not to like)
All my jobs are residential and you have your window empire to target first and up sell.  They know you and trust you, so your half way there to win the work. So getting some jobs to pay for the equipment isnt too hard.
Yet the best thing for me is getting paid a good amount of money as soon as the job is completed.  Ive not had a customer yet that hasnt simply handed the money over on completion!  No chasing your money up.

Its a great way to have a small break from the glass
[/quote]


Nathan you read my mind. These are exactly the reasons why 

[hank jr]

Definitely pressure washer. 100%.

Do you get much work for PW ? Is it your main income or do you do windows too?

[Slacky]

Definitely pressure washer. 100%.

Do you get much work for PW ? Is it your main income or do you do windows too?

I do windows as well, but the amount of income from PW'ing far exceeds that of gutter clearing. And each job is far likely to be more lucrative.

I sold my gutter vac a month or so ago eventually mainly because of this. I imagine in the last year Ive done about 15K in pressure washing but have never done anywhere near that annually from gutters. PW'ing is a lot more satisfying as well and not hard physically.

[hank jr]

Definitely pressure washer. 100%.

Do you get much work for PW ? Is it your main income or do you do windows too?

I do windows as well, but the amount of income from PW'ing far exceeds that of gutter clearing. And each job is far likely to be more lucrative.

I sold my gutter vac a month or so ago eventually mainly because of this. I imagine in the last year Ive done about 15K in pressure washing but have never done anywhere near that annually from gutters. PW'ing is a lot more satisfying as well and not hard physically.

Now your talking! How do you get most of your pw work? Upselling to window cleaning custies? flyers? website?

[Slacky]

I use Google Ads, the local parish magazine, website and up selling to customers.

[Stoots]

Its worth considering your local market also.

Just like windows can vary one area to the next add on work does also,

Whilst you may be able to command £400+ a day doing a large posh house somewhere down south, how much realistically can you charge on a 3 bed semi up north?

I found a lot of people just not willing to pay what i would want to do add on work in my local area, most houses are run of the mill, with small patios, decking or driveways and many think the going rate should be £50 - £100 for such things.

Gutters for example i would want £60 an hour, yet i found it not easy to do in reality. Like i said, for me personally not worth the faff but many make it work and do very well from it.

 

[Richard iSparkle]

Ive just spent £1600 on the industrial sky vac and we love it. much better than the Grippa vac we've used for 8years. makes gutter jobs easy to do.

we have a PW too and whilst you can bring in good money with it off your WC customers... I'm not a fan and its sits unused for most of the year. in fact i think i'll sell it next year.

[hank jr]

I use Google Ads, the local parish magazine, website and up selling to customers.

Google ads i will be using, but I keep hearing about the local parish magazine. How would I go about advertising in my local parish magazine?

[hank jr]

Ive just spent £1600 on the industrial sky vac and we love it. much better than the Grippa vac we've used for 8years. makes gutter jobs easy to do.

we have a PW too and whilst you can bring in good money with it off your WC customers... I'm not a fan and its sits unused for most of the year. in fact i think i'll sell it next year.

Not a fan of the pw eh. The only way to find out for me is to just do it I think. Different areas command different prices. I do feel like I would get some job satisfaction out of doing some pressure washing. Before and afters.

Gutter vac seems good, but whats the maximum height you've got? Where I live there's some really big Victorian houses. You would need at least 40 - 50 ft poles to reach the gutters....

[Richard iSparkle]

Ive just spent £1600 on the industrial sky vac and we love it. much better than the Grippa vac we've used for 8years. makes gutter jobs easy to do.

we have a PW too and whilst you can bring in good money with it off your WC customers... I'm not a fan and its sits unused for most of the year. in fact i think i'll sell it next year.

Not a fan of the pw eh. The only way to find out for me is to just do it I think. Different areas command different prices. I do feel like I would get some job satisfaction out of doing some pressure washing. Before and afters.

Gutter vac seems good, but whats the maximum height you've got? Where I live there's some really big Victorian houses. You would need at least 40 - 50 ft poles to reach the gutters....

our sky vac is 40' reach but we could get more poles to extend.

if they are all Victorian houses near you sky vac will be ace as people wouldn't want to climb.

for me PW is too complicated... but i dont like equipment. there are too many bits that can go wrong for my liking. i like simple. WFP window cleaning and gutter vacs are simple

[hank jr]

Ive just spent £1600 on the industrial sky vac and we love it. much better than the Grippa vac we've used for 8years. makes gutter jobs easy to do.

we have a PW too and whilst you can bring in good money with it off your WC customers... I'm not a fan and its sits unused for most of the year. in fact i think i'll sell it next year.

Not a fan of the pw eh. The only way to find out for me is to just do it I think. Different areas command different prices. I do feel like I would get some job satisfaction out of doing some pressure washing. Before and afters.

Gutter vac seems good, but whats the maximum height you've got? Where I live there's some really big Victorian houses. You would need at least 40 - 50 ft poles to reach the gutters....

our sky vac is 40' reach but we could get more poles to extend.

if they are all Victorian houses near you sky vac will be ace as people wouldn't want to climb.

for me PW is too complicated... but i dont like equipment. there are too many bits that can go wrong for my liking. i like simple. WFP window cleaning and gutter vacs are simple

I'm with you about simplicity. Less stress the better 

The houses in my area arnt all Victorian, but theres a lot of them. Irecently been asked to do a gutter clean on one of them and my ladders arnt big enough. I am considering buying bigger ones at a cost of £250 but I may even bottle out going up that high. Its REALLY HIGH!

The jobs only priced at £120 too. Front and back gutter cleaning.

[Slacky]

I use Google Ads, the local parish magazine, website and up selling to customers.

Google ads i will be using, but I keep hearing about the local parish magazine. How would I go about advertising in my local parish magazine?

Get a copy, from the local church or shops, or ask a policeman

They'll have contact numbers in it for advertising.


http://www.drivewaywash.co.uk/before-and-after/

[Tom-01]

For us gutter clearing earns way more than pressure washing, even without pushing it much.

But then for Slacky it’s the other way round, so there’s no right or wrong.

From my experience we do a lot of gutter clearing all through the year, whereas pressure washing is spring/summer.

I’m looking at pushing both a lot more next year so it will be interesting to see which performs better.

As someone pointed out in an earlier post you could get adequate enough kit for both, and advertise yourself as ‘exterior cleaning’?

[Splash & dash]

We earn far better hourly rate vaccing gutters  than pressure washing , roughly double , if I could just vac gutters I would drop the windows , and pw . Maybe different parts of the country are better than others but most where I am won’t pay for  pw I only get a handful of the quotes I do but gutter vaccing I get over 95% of all quotes and it pays very well , it takes a while to get skilled with a vac and knowing how to approach the job . We do a huge amount of work for letting agencies and most is repeat buisness every year ,I do find it’s a bit seasonal busy time starts about September through March although we do stuff most months throughout the year ,

[hank jr]

For us gutter clearing earns way more than pressure washing, even without pushing it much.

But then for Slacky it’s the other way round, so there’s no right or wrong.

From my experience we do a lot of gutter clearing all through the year, whereas pressure washing is spring/summer.

I’m looking at pushing both a lot more next year so it will be interesting to see which performs better.

As someone pointed out in an earlier post you could get adequate enough kit for both, and advertise yourself as ‘exterior cleaning’?

This is what I'm planning to do. External cleaning is what im targeting in the new year.

[hank jr]

We earn far better hourly rate vaccing gutters  than pressure washing , roughly double , if I could just vac gutters I would drop the windows , and pw . Maybe different parts of the country are better than others but most where I am won’t pay for  pw I only get a handful of the quotes I do but gutter vaccing I get over 95% of all quotes and it pays very well , it takes a while to get skilled with a vac and knowing how to approach the job . We do a huge amount of work for letting agencies and most is repeat buisness every year ,I do find it’s a bit seasonal busy time starts about September through March although we do stuff most months throughout the year ,

That's good info, thanks for sharing! I like doing gutters myself....and fascias. I'd be happy just doing them.

[Seamus ODwyer]

this would power up those new tools v nicely