How To Make A Gutter Cleaning Vacuum
I spent the day getting my yard ready for winter and one of the big projects I had to do was clean out some of my gutters. As you may remember, I actually installed some relatively cheap gutter covers a few years ago and I’ve had pretty good luck with them for the low cost. They blew off once in the spring and this August we had a rough storm come through that actually blew my garage gutter right off the house. I replaced the gutter, but the cheap gutter cover was cracked and I never bothered to put a new one on.
So I ended up having a short run of gutter that was completely overflowing with leaves and gunk and who knows what else. It was so bad that I could see the piles of leaves projecting over the edge of the gutter. I didn’t really want to get out the ladder and climb up on my roof just to clean the gunk out of my gutter. I’m always a little nervous climbing up and down ladders and I simply detect sticking my hand in the muck and dumping it out onto the ground.
Even those “gutter cleaners” with the arms on them force you to take grab the gunk and basically drop it on your head. There had to be a better way. Since I was spending the day cleaning up my yard, I had my Troy-Bilt chipper and leaf vacuum out and I was using it to clean up some sections of the yard. In my chipper vac review I said that I had only use the hose a few times because I didn’t have many hard-to-reach areas. I guess I was wrong on that one. While I was vacuuming the leaves out of the front flower beds I looked up at my gutter and realized I could probably vacuum out the gutters in pretty much the same way.
To build yourself a gutter cleaning vacuum you’ll obviously need a few things. You’ll need a chipper vac
I am lucky enough to live in a ranch home, so I didn’t need any extra length on my leave hose, I just needed some way to put a “hook” on the end of my chipper vac’s hose. I used two 4 inch aluminum ductwork elbows that I happened to have sitting around. They only cost a few dollars each and you can use them again and again from one year to the next. The only other thing I used to create my gutter vacuum was a little foil tape, though simply duct tape would work just as well.
Assembly is pretty obvious. Put the duct elbows together to make a U shape. You may want to tape them together just to keep them secure. Then attach one end of the U to the end of your chipper vac hose, again running a line of tape around it to keep things fairly air tight. I used 4″ duct elbows because they fit over my chipper vac’s extension tube fairly well with just a little bit of play. Obviously you’ll want to work out something that will fit on your chipper vac’s hose. I thought about using a PVC elbow, but the aluminum duct work was readily available and probably a lot cheaper if I had to buy it.
Using it is pretty easy: start of the chipper vac, lift the hose and slowly move the “candy cane” end across your gutter, sucking out all sorts of leaves and twigs and just about most of your other junk up there. I went over the whole length of the gutter twice and since my hose is clear I could see a good bit of debris being sucked out. When I was done vacuuming my gutters I just ripped the tape off and slid the U shaped off my chipper vac’s extension tube. Done!
It wasn’t the most impressive looking tool, but it cleaned my gutters and it prevented me from climbing on the roof. I don’t know if they make professional gutter vacuums, but I imagine they ultimately aren’t much different than my little home made model.
Comment by MICHAEL REYNOLDS
I was really interested in this article. I live in Australia and would really like to ask afew other questions of the person that wrote this? Could you put them in touch with me? Thanks alot, Michael
Comment by Tom
Hi, Michael… I wrote the article. There’s not much to this little trick: I was just extending the vacuum tube of my Troy Bilt chipper vac with some metal ductwork. Last weekend I decided to see if I could put in a 4 foot section of straight ductwork before using the elbow duct… and yep! It worked great. I’m sure there’s a limit to how far I could extend the pipe before I started losing a lot of suction, but 4 feet isn’t it :-)
Comment by MICHAEL REYNOLDS
Hi Tom, Thanks for answering. The trouble is that 4ft of fixed pipe isn’t much? My gutters are 3 metres high (getting on for 12ft) and I guess most single story average houses would be the same? Any chance you could give it a try with more pipe? I don’t want to buy this machine unless I can use it for cleaning the gutters and there is no way of testing it until I buy it!! Thanks for your help, Michael
Comment by Tom
Michael,
Heh… Yeah, I’ve been there: can’t test it until you buy it but don’t want to buy it until you test it. I don’t even have a 12 foot section of duct, but I did have an 8 foot section which I just put on there for a test yesterday. I didn’t tape it on or anything, but the suction still seems pretty good. With a 12 foot tube I’m thinking you might be okay with suction, but the whole thing might be a little unweildy and difficult to control. I’m using cheap aluminum 4 inch wide ductwork and it is a little hard to move around real delicately. I’d almost be afraid of accidentally banging my gutters repeatedly with a 12 foot tube.
I’m not sure if I’d recommend buying a chipper vac JUST for this use :-) I’d say go for the chipper vac as a means of cleaning up all the leaves in your yard and maybe look at the gutter cleaning ability of a leaf vacuum as a “potential” added bonus :-)
I just used mine to clean out the leaves. I have a feeling that if I had a few inches of wet slime and sticks and other debris in my gutters that this wouldn’t have worked quite so well. I still think I may need to get up on a ladder every couple years and give my gutters a thorough cleaning with a hose, but using the chipper vac to suck out the leaves during autumn really helps keep them from getting too clogged up.
Good luck! Let me know how it works out :-)
Comment by MICHAEL REYNOLDS
Hi Tom,
Thanks alot for your help with this. Much appreciated. I went to Bunnings the local Australian DIY superstore the other day. They have either 90mm or 100mm ridgid stormwater PVC pipe. Both are inexpensive and light. They also have very neat elbows which click together (airtight)to make the top section which reaches into the gutter. There are various reducers and increasers to attach the stormwater pipe to the Troy-Bilt 5 inch hose. I tested the unit obviously without the chipper and it was stable and relatively easy to move around.
I’m looking to buy one of the original Troy-Bilt (not inferior MTD) 8HP chipper vacs and using it as a small business here cleaning gutters. I’m fairly sure that the 8HP engine would be sufficient to suck most of the debris even at s standard height of 12 feet. I’m not sure it will work much higher however. At some point there will be a loss of suction. i have also found a couple of exciting tailormade systems. One is http://www.upkeeper.com (expensive). The other is http://www.omni-guttervac.com which I really like. Take a look and let me know what you think. Thanks again, Michael
Comment by Tom
Michael,
Cool! We have guys around here who offer gutter vacuuming, and I think they just go out and buy one of those specially designed systems and basically rent themselves out. I kind of wonder if you could just get a heavy-duty wet/dry shop vac of some sort and basically do the same thing. The chipper vac is nice because it has suction and it obliterates anything it sucks in, but that’s not really necessary…
Those are some heavy-duty gutter cleaners, but yeah, they come with a price. I already had the chipper-vac and most of the extra duct work sitting around, so my gutter vacuum experiment really only cost me a few bucks for the elbow. If you’re serious about cleaning your gutters out without climbing on the roof and you don’t have any other need for a chipper vac, then yeah, go for a customized system!
Let me know what you end up doing. The next time we get some good weather on a weekend I’ll attach the 8 foot piece of duct to my chipper vac and post some photos with info whether or not I seem to lose any suction…
Comment by MICHAEL REYNOLDS
Tom,
Thanks. Here in Australia it’s not easy to find a decent wet/dry with sufficient vacuuming power. You’ll see from the Omni Gutter Vac site that they use 4200w! I’ll let you know what I finally decide on.
Comment by Duke Theedam
Yeah, I’m looking for one myself, but at Omnipoles prices it would be a fraction of that to make my own. I already run a small cleaning business here in the UK (window cleaning and pressure washing) so it would be a good ‘add-on’ service to offer.
Cheers guys…