Maintaining difficult to access guttering.

[Flyfisher]

11m pole sounds like quite a length of anything - do carbon fibre fishing poles come in that kind of length?

Yes, but they're fairly "whippy".

Would I be able to get a pole that long with the requisite stiffness that wouldn't be too heavy to wield? Aluminium?

That's the challenge, I think. I've got some aluminium scaffold poles that are certainly stiff enough but they're nowhere near 11m, probably less than half that as a guess (I'll measure them if anyone really needs to know!). Fairly easy to manhandle though - much easier than steel scaffold poles. I doubt you'd need anything as big as scaffold poles though.

 

[michael]

Any thoughts on the http://www.skyblueleisure.co.uk/acatalo ... _pole.html mentioned above for the task in hand. It’s 10 M high and designed to fly windsocks flags and banners so I would imagine it’s fairly rigid. Price doesn’t seem too bad either (£24.99), certainly when compared with specialist fishing poles (Roach poles I think they’re called?) which as I understand it can cost a thousand pounds or more.

 

[michael]

Sorry. Can’t get the link this time. Try the link in the 11.13 am posting above

 

[michael]

Interestingly, I saw some guys today (presumably professional) cleaning out a nine meter high roof gutter from ground level. The equipment comprised of a very large drum vacuum cleaner on wheels connected to a long rigid 8/9 meter plastic tube. At the end of the tube was a vacuum hose bent over at 180 degrees through a radius of about 400mm to face down into the gutter. There seemed to be a bar connected at 90 degrees to the plastic tube and vacuum hose to keep the hose rigid and facing downwards. This was a similar ‘bent over hose’ arrangement to those used to fill tanker lorries.All this equipment was being handled quite easily by one man who was vacuuming out the gutter.
If you don’t want to rig up your own contraption then I guess you will probably be able to get you gutter inspected and cleaned professionally without having to resort to climbing apparatus.

 

[michael]

Take a look at this website as an example:-
http://www.guttervacuuming.co.uk/

 

[Flyfisher]

That looks like an excellent idea. I wonder how much it costs?