[Pelican]

I offer gutter cleaning to my lawn accounts and I did one the other day that was a nightmare. On roofs with a 5/12 pitch or less, I'll just take the backpack up on the roof and blow the gutters out clean. We had an early cold snap this year so there were a few jobs I didn't get to because gutters froze up. This past week it's been in the 60s so I went back at it.

This one particular client has about a 3/12 roof so up I go with the Red Maxx. The client has trees growing right alongside the house, I've told here in the past that it's not good for the house. One thing that happens is raccoons get up on the roof and leave piles of raccoon "evidence" all over the place. Well, because the gutters were clogged they were full of leaves and water, plus the raccoon "evidence". And because it was warm and a cold front was coming in, we had about 25mph winds, and I don't have to tell you which way it was blowing otherwise there would be no story.

As hard as I tried to work between gusts, I ended up wearing a lot of the spray. I had to get it done that day because the forecast was for temps to drop again that night and refreeze everything. I stayed with it and finished the job, but I just had to think about how the customers never realize what we sometimes have to go through or the dedication we have to service them. Just sounding off here I suppose.

[mdvaden]

I'll have to share this one with our son, who does gutters and windows in Portland area.

By the way, he uses Google Earth to ball-park over the phone estimates, since the ridges and edges that should have gutters are all visible in the images.

Can also be used by a pool company start-up to see what homes have pools in back.

And I've used it to look for heavily vegetated areas to distribute pruning service brochures.

Anyway, it could come in handy for gutter estimating in some cases.