Gutter Cleaning Business Income Hypothetical

[Gutter Keeper]

Using 5 local gutter cleaning companies I’ve received quotes on an average 2000 sq. ft. single story house.

Prices and estimated time to complete the job
Company A quoted $100 and 1.5 hours.
Company B quoted $75 and didn’t give a time.
Company C quoted $150 and 1-2 hours.
Company X quoted $95 and 1.5 hours.
Company Y quoted $75-$85 and a $75 minimum and about 1 hour.

All said they do it by hand, clean gutters and downspouts and a few said they flush the gutters with a hose.
All 5 companies said they had at least 2 men per crew.

Average price: $99 and average time: 1.375 hours (1 hour 22 minutes)
In an 8 hour day let’s say you spend a half hour drive time per job; that makes it about 2 hours per job minus 1 hour for lunch.
Using this assumption the average gutter cleaning company is doing 3.5 jobs per day and making 346.50 a day.
That’s $1,732.50 a week minus your employee’s wages, insurance, and expenses.
If you pay your guys $12 an hour that’s $960 a week for 2 men; let’s assume your insurance plus expenses are around $150 per week.
That leaves you 622.50 in profits (Not too bad).

Is this realistic?

Thanks in Advance

 

[jnoden]

I do little gutter cleaning but thats seems reasonable. Remeber though that is IF you can schedule about 18 jobs a week every week and about 75 gutter cleaning jobs a month. I have a hard time imgaining anyone being able to get that much gutter cleaning business on a regular basis.

 

[PressurePros]

$622 per week isn't bad? Why would annyone own a business to make that kind of money? Expenses would be higher than you think. I would shoot for $600- $800 gross dollars per day.

Henry Bockman is the man to talk to about gutter cleaning.

 

[Henry Bockman]

Ken is right, your pricing model is way off. We usually run 4 trucks full time for gutter cleaning in spring and fall and they each usually average a minimum of 10-15 jobs per truck, per day. If they can't do at least 10 jobs a day they are replaced with someone that can.

During the rest of the year, I usually only have 1 or 2 trucks doing gutter cleaning and have at least one doing roof repairs and other miscl jobs. The gutter cleaning crews probably gross just about as much as the power washing side of my business when you factor in chemicals, sealers and the rest.

 

[Gutter Keeper]

Wow I had no Idea there would be that much work available.

Henry, Do you have much competition where your at?
How long did it take you to get that much work coming in?
What type of advertising do you do?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Gutter Keeper]

Also, what is your average drive time per job?
How many hours a day ect.


TIA

 

[Henry Bockman]

Sure there are a few companies in the area that clean gutters but we have been at it quite a bit longer (16 years) so we have been able to build a rather large customer base for it. That makes the drive times a lot shorter also. In the begining we had a 30 minute drive between jobs, now it's usually 15 minutes or so. During the busy seasons we jump from block to block..lol

Keep in mind that the busy gutter cleaning season coincides with power washing in the spring and fall. If you don't have enough manpower to cover both your going to have to choose or your customer service will suffer. Finding guys that will clean gutters is also difficult to do sometimes.

 

[Gutter Keeper]

Thanks Henry, Very informative.
Since youve been at it so long I hope you wont mind if I ask a few more questions..
Have you found an ideal number of people to put on a crew?
Is 2 too few? It seems like 3 would be ideal.
Also Whats the best way to get new customers?
I was thinking about doing cupons in our local paper.

Thanks

 

[llaczko]

Aaron (Gutter Keeper): You never mentioned that you are trying to market a product...

What is the purpose of this post?

 

[CaroliProWash]

Aaron (Gutter Keeper): You never mentioned that you are trying to market a product...

What is the purpose of this post?

Did I miss something? I read that he was looking into gutter cleaning as an income therefore marketing himself???????

Celeste

 

[Henry Bockman]

I'm not sure if he's trying to sell something or not, I thought he was just asking questions about the business and I don't mind answering them. I'm not interested in buying anything for cleaning gutters. If there was something that could do it easier and faster than I'm doing it, we would have invented it by now ourselves.

Answers:

Two people on a crew max...
Advertise in newspapers and to existing clients.