What Should I Ask For in Writing Before I Choose a Gutter Cleaner?

Not everyone knows the ins and outs of choosing ideal service providers. Knowing you’ve taken all the important things into consideration will make you feel good about deciding who cleans your gutters. Let’s go through the things you should ask for in writing from your service provider when you’re scheduling a gutter cleaning.

Scheduling a gutter cleaning should be an easy process, something that you are comfortable with and satisfied with from the beginning to the end, from scheduling to the work being completed, you should be happy all along the way. There are going to be people who are going to be at your home, somebody that you’ve never met before, possibly a new company that you’re using, and your neighbor referred them to you. That’s wonderful— word of mouth recommendations are the best way to find a company because you know that they have performed the service for somebody that you know and that they were happy with it. But that does not mean that you still should not cover yourself, and just because your neighbor used them doesn’t mean that this is necessarily a legitimate company or somebody that you’re going to be satisfied with. Let’s go over five points that you should make sure that you have in writing from this company before they come out and perform the service for you:

The easiest one is an appointment date and time confirmation. You want to make sure that they are sending you that at least a week or two, or if they’re coming out the next day, even just the day before. You want to know exactly the day and time that this service technician is going to be coming to your home and the time frame in which they expect to arrive, and whether or not they’re going to call you when they’re on their way. This way, if they don’t show up, you have it in writing and you can say, “You sent me this email, you said you would be here. I have it right here.” They can’t deny something that’s in writing to you.

You’re also going to want to ask who you should expect at the job. Who should be arriving: the name of the technician and the crew leader. If they don’t have that information for you because they assigned those jobs that morning, you can tell them, “Please just update my email in the morning. Let me know who I should be expecting between 12:00 and 2:00. Is it going to be Jason that’s coming out to do my gutter cleaning? And who’s going to be with him? How many people are on his crew?” Whenever somebody’s going to be up on a ladder at your home, there should be at least two people coming, so there should be the crew leader and at least a helper with him, because somebody is going to be up on the ladder and somebody needs to be down below holding that ladder, making sure that he is safe, so you want to make sure you’re asking who’s coming and how many people are on that crew.

Talking about safety, the most important point out of all of these is asking for Proof of Liability and Worker’s Compensation Insurance in writing. Make sure that anytime any service provider or contracting company that sets foot on your property to perform a service for you has insurance. Keep yourself safe. Advocate on your behalf. Whoever you choose to come to your home, make sure that you are asking them to provide for you their current and active insurance. Accidents happen. Do not let yourself be in a bad spot. We always never expect an accident to happen. We teach our technicians ladder safety. Everything is taught to them, but things happen. Cover yourself. Make sure that you know that they are fully insured before they are on your property.

You’re also going to want to ask for the estimate that you have been given in writing and what factors may change that estimate if any at all. You do not want to have a company come to your home and say, “Oh, I know we told you $200.00 over the phone, but this job is much bigger than we expected and it’s $500.00 now. Don’t let yourself be in that position. Have it in writing that the estimate says’ “Two hundred dollars for the gutter cleaning, and this is the only reason that that may change…” If there are any changes that might happen, it is going to be discussed with you before the work is completed. Do not let them come out there, do the work and then tell you, “Oh, it’s $500.00 more.” You say, “No, I have it in writing that you told me it was $200.00, you would discuss with me beforehand if there was going to be any changes.” You’re all set. You only owe $200.00.

Finally, you want to ask what’s being performed during the service. You want to have that in writing. You want to say to them, you’re going to ask them, “Are you flushing my downspouts, are you washing out all the gutters from the inside and/or the outside, are you just going to use a leaf blower to blow the debris around, and “What are you doing?” And then, “After you’re cleaning out these gutters, are you taking all the debris with you, and then are you going to then run water through the gutters. through the downspouts, do a full inspection?” Make sure that the water is flowing properly. You don’t want to have somebody just come out to pull out all the debris and say, “Okay, you’re all done,” just to find out that you still have a clog in your downspout, that the water’s still not flowing properly, and then you have a big rainstorm and the water’s just overflowing, still.

In that email that they’re going to be sending you before they arrive, you’re going to have:

Your Appointment Date and Time Information,

Who you should expect to arrive at your home and how many people are arriving,  

The Liability and Worker’s Compensation documents attached to the email,

Your firm estimate, what factors may change that, and that they will speak to you before any work is done if they feel like the price needs to change, and do they perform an inspection after they’re done cleaning and what is done during the process of the cleaning.

So you’re going to have that email that’s going to say, “We’re coming out Tuesday, the 14th, between 12:00 and 2:00, you’ll expect Jason and his helper. Here’s our insurance, we are quoting you $250.00 and the only thing that’ll change that price is if we come out to the home and we have to snake your downspouts because they’re very clogged. We will discuss that increase with you before the work is completed and when we’re up on our ladders, we’re going to be hand-picking out all the debris, putting it in bags, flushing out the downspouts and we’re going to perform a full inspection and water flow test for you before we leave and we’re going to let you know if we find any problems.”

That is a professional gutter cleaning company that has given you all the information in writing and that’s something you can be confident about. You can know that this is a trustworthy company and you can be happy at the end of the service.