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Frequently asked questions about getting quotes
During most parts of the year, we try to provide discounts to customers in order to remain competitive with other companies and to provide customers incentives for using us, especially if they are 1st time customers. It is random as to when we have these discounts, mostly dependent on the amount of work we have scheduled. Whenever a coupon is active, you can see it on our COUPONS page. We don’t typically raise prices, or at least as of December of 2007, we have never raised someone’s price arbitrarily. Often, a customer will receive a discount for using us the first time, and when they come back to us, they have forgotten what their regular price is and only remember the discount. Our regular price is a competitive price that is checked against other fully insured professional companies that are in our field, and the discount is an incentive for trying us. Our hope is that everyone will keep using us for the future at that regular price, which is the guaranteed lowest price of any fully insured company.
There are many numerous factors involved. The primary factor, above and beyond all others, is the danger involved in the repair and the subsequent insurance. Our services are fully insured, meaning that the crews we use are professional and legal employees. Many other companies advertise themselves as insured when they hire day-laborers to perform most of their work. They don’t have to insure the laborers, so they save money, and past the savings onto you, or at least till someone gets hurt on your property and you have to face deductibles on your homeowner’s insurance policy.
The majority of all the work we do is particularly dangerous since it is performed from the roof. Tree pruning from a company like ours would cost more than pruning trees or bushes around your home, being that your landscaper is not in danger if falling to the ground. Most of the repairs we do cost the same or up-to 30% less than the same repairs from a major, professional, insured company. In many cases, our single repairs to your shingles, ventboots, ridgecaps, flashing, or our tree pruning service is less than the minimum service fees of other companies to perform the same work. Insured and professional roofing and tree pruning companies have minimum fees between $125-$250 to come to your home and perform any type of service, whether it is cutting one limb or changing one shingle. We call companies on a regular basis and obtain quotes to know what our competitor’s average is. Likewise, a certain percentage of the cost is based on the high cost of insurance for doing such dangerous work, and the fact that it is dangerous work.
“Lo barato sale caro.” It’s a Spanish proverb that means “The cheap comes out expensive.” The essence of the phrase is that by cutting corners, instead of saving money, it ends up costing you money in the long run. Every repair we do, we charge less than another fully insured competitor of the same size and professional stature. The thing about our industry is most gutter cleaners are not professional companies. Most of them don’t have offices with customer service staff, insurance for their employees, or even an business license. When a “company” doesn’t have the cost of a professional company as we do, they can charge less for the same type of work. One cannot expect our certified and seasoned professionals to match the prices of someone who posts an ad on Craigslist offering the same work at half the price. Handymen and smaller organizations will always be able to beat our prices.
But the cheap does come out expensive. Even the word “cheap” doesn’t mean lower price, but actually means “of lesser quality”. With our service, you get a 3-year guarantee on all repairs. With a random handyman, you never know if they’ll even be around or available if there is an issue in the future. Our prices are fair for the quality of the professional work and the guarantee that comes along with it. In using a company like us, you are also assured that we’ll never sell you on repairs you do not need, or not tell you about repairs that you do need in the hopes you’ll need even more repairs in the future. A professional company, like us, will put your needs first above all. Know that we won’t always be the lowest price, but we’ll never be the highest. If you ask an of our 21,000+ customers who has had our service, they’ll tell you it’s worth it.
This is a question that doesn’t come up often, but sometimes does, especially with repairs, which because of the expertise involved, length of warranty, and high cost of insurance (especially with any roof repairs), prices can sometimes seem high. They aren’t, but people have their own way of determining what repairs should cost, usually only thinking that our only cost is labor and materials, and not considering all the other costs involved in running a professional company. Every service that is done we must pay insurance on that service, and especially for things like roof repairs, which can possibly leak of not done property, the insurance is extremely high. Also, we give a warranty for our repairs, just like the protection plan you get at Bestbuy for your computer or TV. Then there are a multitude of other costs, payroll taxes, accounting, advertising, office expenses, medical insurance, materials, etc. Customers will sometimes look at the work and think we should charge what a handyman or unlicensed or uninsured service would charge, but we simply can’t.
In these instances, the question may come up if the prices we charge are fair or not. Our prices are determined with two formulas that are put together:
1. We determine all our company costs for each service, including time involved, and divide these costs with every service with am average 10-30% markup (depeding on the specific service) on costs for our profit.
2. We call all over to our similar sized and structured competitors and see what they charge, and we charge anywhere from 10-30% less than what they charge (depending on the specific service).
We check gutter cleaning prices every two week, pressure washing and repair prices every month, and gutter and cover install prices every month. We call, just like any customer would, and ask general questions to determine the companies going rates. We do not call uninsured companies or companies that operate illegally. We record every one of these calls and, upon a cusotmer’s request, we are glad to pay a sampling privately, however ethically we wil not post the calls online.
The first calculation method gives us a reasonable price to charge, and the second method helps us adjust based on the market. On our invoices, we have printed prices based on what the overal averages of repairs are in our industry, based on years of doing this research. We will sometimes discount these printed prices based on the quantity of work being done, current prices of our competitiors, and what our current costs are (ie higher gas prices means repairs cost more). The printed prices protect the customer because it creates a line for which our crews cannnot charge more than, or what would be considered price gouging. This keeps our crews honest, and honors our company’s second core value, Integrity.
In the end though, our prices are what our prices are. We can’t make anyone hire us for a service, we can just offer our service at a price we determine to be fair. If we are providing a fair price for a good service, people will hire us. If we overcharge, then we’ll go out of business. Competitive pricing is like an election, and customer’s vote with their money. If a customer questions if our prices are fair, all we can do is provide our campaign, and hope they vote for us.
It is always our preference that the homeowner or one of his or her agents be present to answer any questions and to settle the bill once service is complete, but this is not absolutely necessary. If the homeowner cannot be home, our crew will perform the service and communicate VIA cell-phone and email any issues regarding the home. Once completed, an invoice and envelope will be left in your mailbox. Payment is expected either by the end of the following business day by debit or credit card, or by a check within 5 days of service.
The reason we give a time window for service is that, for obvious reasons, customers want to know when we are going to be at their homes. It is helpful to have a time window if the customer has other contractors scheduled to be at the home, or other events planned on the day of service. The time window, as it applies to our company, is to make sure that we do not interrupt anything happening at the home, whether it be a service, family visiting, kids napping, party, etc. The purpose is not to make sure that the customer can be home for the service. If you could describe the sum of the services we provide by any particular description, it is best said that we perform services too dangerous for the average homeowner to perform, all of which are done to the exterior of the house. We never need to enter the home to do a service. We do not require payment on the day of service. We cannot let homeowners use our ladder or equipment, or help us in any way in doing the work. Given all of these factors, and add to that the ability to communicate by phone or email with the customer if they are not home and take before and after photos of any service performed, there is no logical reason a customer must be home for our service.
Some customers prefer to be home for the service, and we try to accommodate this as best we can, but we never know how many factors are going to affect our service. If the homes we visit before you have light debris or low-pitched roofs, we may end up getting to your home faster than anticipated. If the gutters are heavy with debris and the roofs are steep, each home may take twice as long as anticipated. Also, we never know if a home will have repair issues, or if there will be an accident to cause traffic to slow, or disagreeable weather. There are so many factors that affect our schedule that it is next to impossible to predict an exact time. We truly try out best to make it within the time frames promised or within a couple of hours of the time frame; and it is extremely rare for a crew to completely run out of time and be unable to complete the services scheduled on the day. If any serious incident occurs to greatly affect the schedule, such as sudden weather changes or an accident to one of our staff, we contact customers immediately to reschedule.
As far as contacting customers with changes in time window, we will do this if the customer has said ahead of time there is a specific important reason for the time frame, such as other work happening at the home, a child’s nap time, or a party is scheduled. Other than these or other extreme circumstances, we do not expect any customer to be home for the service. Our crews do not call the office with progress reports between houses. If we were to ask this of our crews and contacted customers as changes arise, we may end up calling a customer every 40-60 minutes to say the service time has changed again due to this reason or that. In the time it would take our crews to call in at every house they do, it would only add more time to their routes and cause further delay. A customer can always call and check to see how the route is progressing if they are concerned, but since we do not require their presence for the work to be done, they should not inconvenience themselves by feeling they need to be home.
In order to be able to clean the quantity of homes we do on a day to day basis and charge the low prices we charge for our services, we must do our scheduling in routes. We schedule people by the cities they are in, blocking and doing a number of people in the same city at the same time. The jobs form an obvious route and, as people reschedule or cancel, the order of that route changes all the way up to the day of services. The reason we wait till the day before to give a time frame is it is the point that we can give the most accurate timeframe. If we gave people an estimated time frame the day we scheduled them, then we would end up having to call them each time the scheduled time frame changed. It would become annoying as we call every time there is an adjustment.
There is no average charge as there is no average house. Every house is different and unique, yet we do have certain questions we ask to determine your specific price. Our prices usually range between $20-$40 less than other fully insured companies that service the same area. Our minimum price for service is $95.00. The cleaning cost for average Atlanta homes (1-3 story, 1500-4500 sq feet, asphalt roof, screens or no screens) is between $130.00 and $170.00.
This changes from every house, but the majority of our customers have their gutters cleaned every six months on a regular basis. Home with lots of trees directly over the gutters or homes with pine straw trees have us come for gutter cleaning anywhere between three to five times a year.
The majority of our customers are happy with simply blowing and clearing the debris into the natural landscape of their homes. This process involves clearing all debris from decks and patios, driveways, and flat or stone walkways. Generally, we try to leave the landscape looking the same as when we arrived, if not slightly better. When it comes to highly manicured lawns, blending and mixing the debris becomes more difficult. In these instances, our company offers bagging as a courtesy service to our customers. The bagging, in most cases, takes longer than the actual gutter cleaning itself. For this reason, we must charge $10 per bag for the extra labor. The average house is usually 1 to 2 bags.
Our blowers have the equivalent concentrated power of a hurricane wind. When we put this air pressure to your downspout, clogs don’t have a chance. Our crew observes the debris as it blows out the bottom of the spout. Finally, a tiny rock or penny is dropped through the downspout to see if it comes out the other side. If a rock can get through, water won’t be a challenge. If the rock doesn’t come out, our team examines the length of downspout to find the clog and, if a major clog, we will dismantle parts of the downspout and clear the clog out manually. We used to charge extra for this, but now it is all a part of our basic service
Water is the worst element to involve in gutter cleaning. Using water pressure for gutter cleaning sprays the debris into a larger mess. It also saturates the debris, causing to be slimy and to stick and stain surfaces it lands on. Also, if water is used on a downspout, the debris in the spout saturates and sticks together, making the clog worse than what it was before. Use of water in the gutter cleaning process is the sign of an amateur company. Water should only be used in spraying debris off of areas where the debris has landed, as in the side of the house.
This may be hard to understand to some, but we have very little control over the quality of cleanup. The majority of the control is in the hands of the homeowner. If a homeowner has us come out every 6-7 months, the cleanup can be immaculate, or the closest thing to it. When people wait a year or longer between cleanings, the debris in the gutters decays into a fine, powdery mix that, when blown out, scatters and spreads over everything. When this happens, we do clean it up, but it is difficult to do such a thorough job as to get every speck. The majority of time when people have concerns with our cleanup, nine times out of ten, it is because the homeowner is taking too long between cleanings. To use an analogy, doing cleanings every 6 months is like taking a bowl of sugar cubes, pour them on the ground, and sweeping them up. Waiting a year or longer is like pouring the same quantity of sugar from the same bowl, but doing so in powdery sugar form, and then trying to sweep up in the same amount of time. You’ll end up with some sugar left behind
If you have plastic covers, there are two, and ONLY TWO, ways we can clean. The first method is a cover cleaning. We can blow off the tops of the covers and blow out the slits where the water gains access to the gutter. This will clean off any access points and should allow water in if the covers are doing their basic function. The other cleaning method is permanently removing the covers from the gutters, blowing out everything inside the gutters, and throwing the covers away. For more on why we cannot reinstall the plastic covers, click HERE. We cannot and will not, under any circumstances or for any amount of money, remove plastic covers and reinstall them. Our recommendation out of the two options is always to permanently remove them.
Some pressure washing companies and plumbers have machines which can unclog and clear these underground pipes. Unfortunately, our company and others like us do not have the proper equipment. We can assure our customers that the downspouts are clear and check to see if there are clogs in these systems, but the clog would need to be cleared by a different company. We have called all major gutter cleaners in Atlanta, and none of them perform this service either.
You should definitely be concerned with having a handyman or unprofessional service operating at your home given any of the above circumstances. Slate, cedar, and tile roofing consists of slick, smooth, fragile shingles which are dangerous to stand on, impossible to be on in the presence of moisture, and can be carelessly cracked or dislodged by unskillful movement on the roof. Likewise, copper gutters are of a completely different nature than aluminum or galvanized metal gutters. Where aluminum is resilient to bending, copper is not. Copper is an expensive metal, and expensive to fix given that welding is required. The ONLY way to eliminate any concern about this is to hire Atlanta’s Best Gutter Cleaners. Our Certainteed Certified roofers have vast experience on these roofs and with copper and half round gutters, servicing many homes in the Sandy Springs, Buckhead, and North Atlanta homes with these special and unusual materials. If any of the above criteria applies to your home, it is not worth the risk to hire a company that doesn’t use professional roofers and experienced, professional cleaners
This is caused when a gutter has pulled away and the debris has fallen behind the gutter. Most of this debris can be cleared about by our crews, but not all of it. Some debris will stick out of the bottom space between the gutter and fascia board. Our crews are not able to reach this debris with their equipment, yet the debris poses no problems to the gutter or fascia board. It may be somewhat unsightly, but only when directly under it. It is, in most cases, impossible to see the one or two pine straw needles that may have become lodged and stuck behind the gutter by simply glancing and passing by your home. The most assured way to keep this problem from occurring is to make sure the gutters are secured properly. If you see this issue and have not repaired the gutters, then it is time to get them repaired before you get water damage to your home.
Nothing quite sound like clean than “drip, drip, drip.” When the gutters are full, or even moderately dirty, there is grime and leaves to soften the fall of water into the gutters. Once they are cleaned out, any water falling will hit the metal directly. This creates a loud drip sound, loud for not having debris to muffle the sound, and loud because the abscense of debris will allow the gutters, and espcially the downspouts to have an echo effect. The downspout, which is a long metal tube, will have water falling straight down and, when empty, the accoustics with amplify the sound. Sadly, there is much that can be done about this. Usually a month after a clean, debris is already falling in the bottoms of the gutters, which will help silent the drip.
Every single customer to us is important and special. Some customers, however, call us and, upon booking a returning service, will refer to themselves as a “returning customer.” Their intent in this is to signify that they are loyal and, in most cases, should receive some type of discount for loyalty above a beyond our normal fair pricing, or whatever the pricing is at the time. That then begs the questions as to what is truly the difference between a regular customer, and a loyal customer or “regular” who’s patronage is honestly seen as more supporting to our business than anothers. Where is the line? That would be at returning every 6 months. This is not only the best frequency for getting the gutters clean, but it seems to be the frequency held by a good portion of our regular customers. We don’t have a VIP program, but if we did, customers who use us consistently every 6 months would be our Gold/Platinum card customers. Every nine months would be the silver, and once a year or longer would be the bronze, or lowest level. With respect to all of our customers, if gutters should be cleaned every 6 months, but the customer only uses us once a year or once every two years, they aren’t really that as a customer that uses us consistently. And we do have special discounts in place for customers who use us every 6 months, and these discounts are not available to customers who use us only once a year or longer. This doesn’t mean, however, that we treat any customer differently, or with any preferential treatment. Every customer is treated with the same courtesy and fairness. But if you use us every 6 months, you’ll get better discounts, because you will truly be a returning loyal customer. If you don’t use us every 6 months, your just as important, and we’ll give you the best price possible, but whatever discount you receive will be in consideration of your service’s frequency, respectfully.
The purpose of gutters are to collect and redirect water runoff from your roof, to limit and avoid damage to your home. If you have trees within 50 feet of your home, you have leaves falling in the gutters. It only takes a couple of handfuls of leaves to fall throughout a system and be carried by water to the downspouts to create a clog. These clogs will prevent water from flowing through the system, working like a dam. Water, with no where to go, will pool, fill, and overflow the system. This will cause oxidation to aluminum gutters (aka Zebra Stripes), rusting in galvanized gutters, rotting of soffit and fascia boards, as well as water damage in basements and ceilings. Decaying debris sitting in the gutter releases acid that eats at seams, as well as attracts pests by both providing nutrition and nesting for ants, yellow jackets and the like. Cleaning gutters on a regular basis prevents all of these issues.
Not as long as you may imagine. Some people think it’ll take an hour or two hours to do. In truth, our certainteed certified roofers with over 2,000 hours on roofs minimum can walk around and blow out the gutters on an average home in the same time it takes you to walk around the perimeter of the home, give or take. Add on to that the time of setting up and taking down the ladder, doing the ground cleanup, and filling out the invoice, and the average gutter cleaning is 20-30 minutes. It can be longer depending on the size of the house, if the debris is wet or really decayed, wind, temperature, steepness of roof, type of roof, if the home is stucco, if the home has missing fascia board, etc. Some homes can take as long as an hour to do due to their size or if they have a special roof, but this is accounted for in the pricing. Likewise, if the stars align just right in the right conditions, they can be in and out in 20 minutes. Minor changes in length of time doesn’t change the price of the service, as most of the costs go to things which do not relate to the time, such as cost of materials, expensive workers compensation and general liability insurance, and the overhead of running a professional company. However, in general we are budgeting 20-30 minutes of service and some homes with significant decayed debris could take way longer to clean immaculately. in these instances, they do as much cleanup as they can within the budgeted time from we planned on, but there may be areas and things they cannot clean on the ground as we simply have run out of time and the only way to properly add more time would be to charge more.
Frequently asked questions about Pressure Washing
Yes, we do. We do pressure washing of the home, roof, driveways, and decks and patios
If the home is in good repair, sealed correctly, and has no pre-existing issues, then the home will have no damage from the service. However, if there are issues, such as rotted wood, chipping paint, cracks in the foundation, loose siding, or anything the affects the structural intergrity and waterproofing of the home, then it is possible, under those circumstances, that water can get into the home. Sometimes, customers don’t know they have pre-existing issues because rain doesn’t typically fall on the home sideways, at least not for a significant amount of time. When these problems are discovered, it is always disappointing. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, we aren’t responsible or liable as the fault is in the construction of the home, and not in our method or force of washing. As an analogy, if a car goes through a car wash, and water gets in the car, it’s because the car failed to keep the water out, not that the water some how forced its way in
An online deal is a great way to save money, but sometimes people by them without reading all the details of the deal or asking questions when they don’t understand the deal. The vast majority of the deals that we do (currently and in the future) are for house washing only. This covers only the sides of the house going vertically up and down. This incluces windows, but does not include porches, patios, driveways, walkways, steps, decks, or any horizontal surfaces that are connected or conjoined to the house.
Probably not. The pressure washing can clean off new and fresh dirt and grime, but anything that has been”baked” into the side of the gutter by the sun will be stained on. Pressure washers won’t be able to clean this off. Sometimes, scrubbing by hand can work, but no professional service can do this since it must be done by ladder and prolonged standing on ladders is prohibited by OSHA regulations and is just too dangerous. The most common solution we have found people to do is have house painters paint the gutters from scaffolds.
We’ve found that if you just wash your roof and do not wash the sides, the chemical wash will drip onto the lower areas, cleaning some parts but not other, creating a splotchy mess. Some people will look at this and think their siding has been damaged or bleached in spots, but really they now have spots on their home that are freshly cleaned where the rest of it is still dirty. Any time we’ve attempt and roof wash only, this has been the result. The only way to prevent this is to do a house pressure washing at the same time as the roof washing.
When you wash anything, you splash and have runoff. Anything that is growing against the house can get chemical water on it, and grass that is under a deck or beside a driveway being washed will have water run off into it.. We do our best to wet the plants and grass down thorough to keep the chemical from causing too much damage, but in the end, a little chemical damage in these circumstances is unavoidable and expected. Grass can can yellow and die, but will grow back in within 2-3 months. In most cases, plants will recover as well. If you notice any issues immediately after the service, call us and we’ll make a note of it. If the plants and grass have not improved in 3 months times, give us a call to come investigate their condition.
Oxidation. Paint that is applied to aluminum, which can be siding, flashing or the metal in and around a driveway, can become loose and powdery when it is impropertly painted and sealed. The oxidation causes the paint to separate from the metal. We don’t have the ability to touch and test each surface, and the paint will appear mostly normal to the naked eye. you don’t know there is an issue till the paint washes right off from a direct spraying. In these cases, a garden hose would have enough power to wash the paint off, but usually homeowners will have this issue and not be aware cause rain is too light to bring the issue to your attention. This process takes years, and is in no way caused by the pressure washing. In the instance of oxidation, a painting company will need to come in, thoroughly remove the oxidation, and repaint. We find this issue to be extremely rare, occuring on 1 of every 900 homes.
If water gets into the home during a pressure washing, it is unfortuante, but it isn’t anything we can help. The home is supposed to be weather proofed. If the doors and windows are closed properly, sealed properly, and weatherproofed, nothing will get in. If, however, there are gaps or cracks in the windows or doors, even so small that you cannot see them on a regular basis, chemical water may get in and possibly damage carpet, drapes, etc. This isn’t the fault of the pressure washing, but of the house not doing it’s job of keeping the water out. It would be just like going through and automated car wash and water starts leaking into your car around the window. You wouldn’t blame the car wash, you would blame the car. We try our best to be as cerful and dutiful as possible, but in most conditions, your home doesn’t have water hitting it sideways. This means that you may not be aware there is a crack or gap till it is too late. And if you don’t know about the gap, then we won’t know either. It’s just one of those things that you can’t know till it’s too late. If water does get in, you may have redress with the install of the window, door, or the builder of the home. Unfortunately, the most we can do is write a letter on your behalf explaining how and where the water came in. Luckily, this problem is very rare, but if it does occur at your home, it is still unfortunate.
Aluminum gutters, though rust proof, are not completely safe from the effects of oxidation. Oxidation is a chemical reaction where oxygen items bombard and and cause a change in another form of matter. If you cut open an apple and leave it on the counter, soon it changes color as the outer layer oxidizes. Most people, however, are familiar with oxidation in the form of rusting, which is when oxygen in forms of moisture, like water, react with various metals, transforming the metal into rust. Aluminium cannot rust, but it can oxidize and change color, similar to that of the apple. The right elements must be in place for this to happen. You need water and shingle debris. Your shingles shed sediment all the time, and it is washed with each rain into your gutters. This sediment contains petroleum. The aluminum metal has a natural electromatic bonding, or EB. It natural attracts and draws towards it dirt and algae particles in the air, as well as these asphalt particles. When the gutters overflow, the water, containing these particles, also adhere to the front of the gutter. These particles start the oxidation. Once oxidation occurs, the surface of the gutters need only a good rain or a light brushing to loose their protective finish. This is most often seen from the clog gutters overflowing, dripping down the front of the gutters and creating patches of discoloring or a zebra pattern. This doesn’t happen overnight, but the longer you have clogged gutters that are overflowing, the more exponential the effects. This can also appear quickly in homes with new roofs where lots of shingle debris is left in the gutters. We have found that pressure washing does little to remove this as oxidation, which from a distance appears just as dirt, is actually a destruction of the outer finish that creates a permanent stain. Our recommendation is to find a painter who will paint over, and keep the gutters free of clogs to prevent future issues.
Screens are not designed to go under the shingle, like a fully covered product does. They are designed to snap onto the outer lip of the gutter, arch over, and lay on top of the roof. Screens are built with a hinge for a purpose: they must be opened to beproperly clean. If they are stuffed under the roof shingles, then the screen will be flat, flawing their basic design. This will lead to debris falling directly onto of the screen and eventually completely covering it. Water will roll over the debris and right off the gutter, leading to water damage to the home.
Regular screens cannot be installed properly on half-round gutters or copper (a common metal used for half-rounds). A special screen must be custom-ordered for that type of gutter. Also, though it is rare, a small percentage of normal box gutters are manufactured with an incorrect lip angle. It is the lip that the gutters snap onto. If the lip doesn’t have the proper angle, the screens won’t snap and hold correctly, leading to problems during cleaning with screens falling off. If this is the case, you should contact the company that originally installed the screens, because they may have taken advantage of you.
Screens are not screwed, glued, or sealed down to the gutters or roof. They are simply snapped on to the outer gutter lip and lay on top of the shingle’s edge. They are designed to flip up and down. Really strong winds can cause them to flip over or even completely fall off the home, especially if the screens are 5 years old or older and the clips are too stretched. It is not uncommon to loose as many as five screens in one year’s time. The thing to understand about screens is that they are not a perfect system. They don’t completely stop the need for cleaning, they only prolong and limit the need. By losing three or four screens, your system will still be affective. If you lose five or more during a year’s time, there may be a concern. If one or two come off, collect them together and the next time you call us out, or any other roof professional, you can have them put back up at no charge as long as the screens are not rusting and the clips are still good (usually on screens less than 5 years old).
No. We do not install plastic products such as screens and covers and do not recommend them to anyone in Georgia. The plastic covers you can get in most hardware stores are extremely ineffective when it comes to keeping debris out of your gutters. Further more, they tend to warp and change shape due to extreme heat exposure in the summer months. The affect flaws the design, making them completely ineffective. As a professional policy, not only do we not provide the plastic style, but we must refuse offers to install plastics you have purchased of your own accord. They are a waste of money and if you have purchased them, you should return them for a refund. Since they will eventually become ineffective, we cannot install them or reinstall them under any circumstances since we do not want to be blamed or held liable when the customer discovers the problems they lead to.
Though houses are based on blueprints, in truth houses are like snowflakes, where no two are alike. The length of gutters on the home has little to do with square footage and more to do with the actual layout of the roof. Depending on how the roof is designed to angle, a 2000 square foot home could have 100 or 150 feet of gutter. There really is no way to give a proper guess as to the linear feet of gutter based solely on the square footage
Metal screens have a good shelf life of avout five years. At the five year mark, the clips of the screens become stretched to the point where they loose their tension and the screens no longer stay up. Also, after 5 years, you may start to see rust on the screens, depending on how long wet debris lies on top of them. Plastic screens in the Atlanta heat have a shelf life of about 2 years before the start to warp and loose their shape and function.
Frequently asked questions about Repairs and other Services
Changing seasonal temperatures cause the exposed holes to expand. Eventually, the weight of the gutter and its debris pull the smooth spikes away from the rafter/fascia board. Drilling new holes and adding gutter screws eliminates this problem permanently.
As a company, no. The only things we train our crew for and guarantee for are services we list on our website. Even some of those services, like pressure washing, have no guarantee. Every now and then a customer will ask if we can nail a shutter up, take down a dead wasp nest, put up some woodpecker tape or pull down some ivy, or adjust the setting of some flood light on the roof. When it comes to this stuff, what we tell the customers is we cannot as a company, but it doesn’t mean the crew wouldn’t be able to. If that customer wants to discuss privately, separarately, outside of the purview of the company and its insurances and guarantees and make a private arrangement for tips for something small outside of our service, we are fine with this. The customer must understand that if anything should go wrong, like stickers from ivy still in walls, paint coming off when removing something, or a shutter is upside down or falls off after, or something is damaged or someone is injured during the progress of this, it is between the homeowner and the worker as a private matter. Whatever transpires has nothing to do with the company and not something to call the company about in any regard, would not be applicable to any guarantee or warranty or insurance, nor will it have any affect on the payment arrangements of the work the company does for the customer.
Being on your roof is a very dangerous place, where many service companies probably won’t go. The price we charge for gutter cleaning or any of the other services we provide are specific for that service, and are not designed to encompass favors or special requests. Once a service is done, our crews do not want to stay on a roof or in any form of danger. If it is necessary for us to do additional work upon your request, there of course will be an additional fee. Whether it is filling a few holes in some shingles, taking down an old antenna or satellite dish, taking down a branch or two, adjusting a weather vane, spray painting a piece of flashing or anything beyond the scope of the description of our service, it is something that occupies our crews in a possibly precarious or dangerous position for a greater amount of time. Remember, what seems like it would be easy and quick to do appears completely different when you are 30 feet high against the wind in roof temperatures between 100-110%
No, our crews carry a large supply of floodlights with them everyday. We use brand new lights that the manufacturer guarantees will last for four years. If a bulb we replace goes out within 45 days of installation, we will replace it at no charge.
We do clean skylights, but only because they are on the roof where even most window cleaning companies cannot reach. We do not clean regular house windows as a rule.
We are sorry you spent the money to have the bulbs replaced and are still without light. I hate to say this but it is not the fault of the bulbs. If the bulbs were out before, and you were paying us to replace them, and we replaced them with brand new bulbs-none of which are working, then obviously there is an electrical problem with the system. Unfortunately, we don’t do electrical work. Though you paid to have bulbs replaced that may not have needed replacement, please understand that there is nothing wrong with the bulbs we installed and cannot do a refund on them as they are now opened and out of the package (as every home we install gets a fresh bulb straight out of the package). We do want you to know that trying to replace the bulbs first is the most logical thing to try, as it is cheaper than hiring an electrician
Frequently asked questions about Warranties and Guarantees
Atlanta’s Best Gutter Cleaners carries Workman’s Compensation and General Liability. This coverage protects you if either your property is damaged, or if someone from our company becomes injured or ill while on your property. Most of the companies that perform services like ours in Atlanta are not covered by Workman’s Compensation, or they hire day laborers not covered by the company policy. Whenever a customer schedules service, we provide our insurance certificate by email or fax.
If you decide to use a company other than Atlanta’s Best, make sure they provide a certificate by email or fax on they day you book service. If they promise to bring you a copy or send it by postal mail, it is a sure assumption that they are stalling in the hopes of working on your property before you realize the dangerous and liable position you are in.
Yes. We guarantee everything we do for 45 days. This covers floodlights, cleaning, screen and cover installs, and all repairs. Our roof and gutter repairs are guaranteed for three years. Our no-clog cover installation is guaranteed for five years. All of our guarantees are available HERE!
Frequently asked questions about Preparing for Service
When we call you the day before, you have advance notice to make sure certain precautions are taken to make the cleanup more efficient. Don’t park cars near the roofline. Cover any pool or pond areas close to the home. Cover or move lawn furniture, as well as lowering any umbrellas. Also, if there is any particular foliage, flowerbeds, plants, or special landscaping you want avoided (if we can), then please feel free to tell us. Any notes or special instructions can greatly reduce any confusion and complication
Frequently asked questions about Paying for Service
We take all major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover), as well as personal checks, and money order. You can pay your bill securely on our website, or we can send you a Paypal invoice.
Yes, it is. The symbol you see when you pay on some websites, which looks like a padlock, is a sign of a company’s SSL Certificate. It’s a protocol that relates to the encryption of data that is sent through the internet. Without this protocol, your payment would not be safe. Some SSL Certificates have symbols or drop down items that appear in web browsers, but not all of them do. We, unfortunately, have an SSL certificate that does not appear. There are other methods to determine if a site is secure or not. We use an Online SSL Certificate Checker. You simply go to the site, enter the web address you want to check, and it tells you all the details about the SSL Certificate, or tells you that there is none. If the website you check does not have an SSL certificate, do not provide any payment information.
Forever, until you cancel. It has no end date or date of renewal. We continue to honor it till you tell us to no longer honor it and provide service anymore
The discount you receive is directly proportionate to the frequency of service. When you push the service back to a longer duration between cleaning, the discount lowers. At a certain point the discount will disappear, at which point there is no reason to even have an annual agreement. If the duration becomes this long, we’ll simply cancel the annual agreement and notify the customer to contact us when they are ready for service again.
We do not combine discounts. If you have a discount or coupon you wish to use, and it exceeds the annual agreement disount, you can use it instead, but we cannot combine.
When someone gets our covers installed, if they should need maintenance, which isn’t always the case, we are more than happy to come out and do the service at $90, which is cost. We make no profit from this, it is simply meant to maintain the system from the install. Unfortunately, at that price, there is no way we can go lower, so even if you sign up for an annual agreement, we can’t give a greater discount than what you already get through having the cover system.
Unfortunately, we cannot. For one thing, we only receive a portion of what you pay for the deal, so we don’t have the financial resources to provide a full refund. The second is your payment information is with the the party service, ie your credit card info. If someone purchases a deal from us, we will honor it within the perameters of teh deal, so there really shouldn’t need to be a refund. The few refunds we have witnessed were people who purchased deals and were not in our service area, or they did not read the details of the deal closely and thought the coupon was going to cover more than they expected (this happens alot with pressure washing, where a deal may only cover 2-3k square feet and the home may be 4-5k in size). In any instance where the customer does not want to use the deal they purchased, and cannot get a refund, they can always give it as a gift to someone who is in our service area.
First off, we are sorry we do not service your area. We tell every deal service we use that they can provide a link to our Where We Service, but we have very little control over how any of the deal sites pertray the deals. When we make these deals, we are doing the services at a fraction of our normal cost, and we do, once or twice a month, service areas outside of our regular area, but we typically charge two-to-three times the normal fee for the time it takes to go the extra distance. This is even true when we go just a couple of miles out, because in the time to drive a few miles out and back in to do one job, we could do two jobs in our normal service area. If we are already charging double or triple our normal prices to go outside our area, we aren’t going to make exceptions when we are only getting paid a quarter of what we normally make off of a home.
In instances when a deal expires, we abide by the wishes of the deal site and their specific expiration policy and instructions. The vast majority of deal sites state that the deal is now worth the dollar value you have paid, and you need only pay the difference of the service (IE if you paid $79 for the deal, then you have a $79 certificate worth $79 towards your service)
No matter what the deal sites policy is, what their expiration date is, what your deal may say, we do not redeem deals during the months of December, January, and February. These are our busiest times of year of which many customers have is automatically set up to come and do services at regular price without discount. We are so booked with people pay regular full price, we do not have openings to do services that are half-priced deals. Every deal site we do a deal with is aware of this policy, though most do not post it in the deal. We try to get the deal sites to arrange the expiration dates to keep this policy in mind, though not all deal sites are as flexible with us on the dates as we would like. Best time to use deals are between April and October.
The short answer is now. A deal is designed to do one specific task to completion. It doesn’t take into account the extra costs of stopping in the middle and switch ladder locations, equipment, chemicals, or using more expensive chemicals and equipment. To use an example, if you bought a whole house pressure washing, but only wanted a couple of walls done and wanted the deck or driveway done in exchange, the deck and drive cost more to clean per square foot service because of how dirtier they get, the different chemicals and quantity of chemicals used, and the longer time required. Taking 100 sq ft of house and comparing it to 100 sq ft of deck of driveway is like taking 1 glass of Sprite and comparing it to 1 glass of Dom Perignon. To use an anology, you couldn’t take a gift certificate for a free pizza and ask the restuarant to only give you two of the slices and in excahnge give you chicken wings and a 2-liter.
For gutter cleaning, $10 per 500 square feet over, for pressure washing, $50 per 500 square feet over.
There are multiple coupons or discounts available at any given point, either through our website, a third party website, a direct email, or a coupon off an invoice. In general, they are usually around the same price and only meant to be used once. We do not ever comvbine coupons or do more than one discount. If there are ever two different available discounts from two different sources, we’ll honor the larger, of course, but you cannot use both. If we sent you an email saying we have a $20 discount, and you have a coupon from your previous invoice that says you can have $20 off, we are sending something in addtion, but basically sending you the same discount again. We already try to do our services for as low as we can. To quote Willy Wonka, “Everyone has one, and one is enough for anybody.”
If we could, of course, we wouldn’t do discounts ever. Our regular prices are comporable and competitive with that of other fully insured services in our industry with the same professionalism and quality. Any discount we do offer is, of course, to encourage business. By this rational, discounts will be bigger when our business is slower and, subsequently, when you are less likely to desire a cleaning, but still need one. We must service all year round to stay in business, but our business is somewhat seasonal and has ebbs and flows. Our biggest discounts will be in September and October, when people start waiting for the leaves to fall. We’ll offer big discounts during this time to encourage people to keep us open and alive, often doing cleanings basically at cost to keep our workers employed. The reverse of that coin flip is when the busy season comes, in December and January, and everyone needs gutter cleaning, we don’t offer discounts. Charging regular, non-discount prices during this time helps us stay alive during those difficult months. If people never pay full price, then we wouldn’t stay open to do discounts during other parts of the year. After all, that regular price is there for a reason. Our regular price is still very fair and competitive when compaired to most companies. Ever since 2006, we have not done discounts during these two months. As business gets better every year, we do less and less discounts throughout the year, but December and January will always be no discount.
Here is a fun video that explains supply and demand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP0j3Lnlazs
Call our expert staff at 770-677-6690.
Frequently asked questions about Company Policies
We have never come to a home where the homeowner quoted the house correctly that we could not perform a cleaning. If you provide us information that is incorrect, such as having a cover system when you said your gutters were open, or your home is 4 stories on all sides, when you said it was only three, we would charge an $90.00 trip charge for the cost of having us come out. Most companies would still charge you the total of the full service. As far as a canceled service, there are many opportunities to cancel before we arrive. Even calling first thing on the morning of service saves the time and expense of sending a crew to your home. If we arrive at your home and you cancel us at the door, we charge the $85 trip charge.
The safest thing to do is provide accurate info as possible and cancel service as soon as you learn you won’t need it anymore.
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In most cases whenever someone contacts our company in the hopes of matching the price of another cleaner, they in essence very literally saying, “This other company says they’ll do the service for X, but I would much rather have you do it.” The catch 22 of the situation is they don’t actually say or sometimes even conciously acknowledge the reason why they don’t want to use the other company in the first place; which are usually the reasons we cannot match their price. My favorite analogy for this is comparing a T-Bone from Waffle House and a t-Bone from Ruth Chris or Mortons. All serve a t-bone steak, but it is impossible to get Ruth Chris to lower the price of their t-bone to match waffle house. Whether the reason they give is the quality of the meat, quality of the preparation, quality of the cooking, the size, the ambiance of the experience, Ruth Chris isn’t going to give you a $30 steak for $10. Similarly, our signature service has made us the most popular gutter cleaning company in the city. The reasons we are given for customers not wanting to use the other companies are either bad service or bad reputation. We charge a fair price for our service, and can only match another company if they meet all of the following criteria: (1) A rating on the BBB (2) has verifiable Worker’s Compensation policy through Georgia States verification website (3) owner has no criminal record (4) must be in business longer than 1 year (5) must have a real office location, like us, as opposed to working out of an apartment or parent’s kitchen (6) in general review, most have more positive reviews than negative ones and (7) we must be able to obtain the same quote from the company independantly using similar criteria to your home. That is a lot, but the good new is you don’t have to do the research. We do the research upon your request, and will present you with what we find. We have detailed files on every competitor there is out there, and can do this fairly quickly. You might look at this list and then that no company would meet all of that criteria, but there are companies that do . . . but we are generally $20-$30 cheaper than them already, and usually are not the ones customers call us about to price match.
There are some industries and companies where referral discounts are prevalent. In these, the companies specifically request and solicit their customers to busk their services. We never do this. We don’t want anyone to go out of their way or inconvenience themselves on our behalf. If you recommend our service, we want it simply to be because someone happened to mention needing the service and you were happy with our service. We wouldn’t give something for this because we generally expect it as a result of doing a good job, similar to if a restaurant makes you a great meal you may recommend them to people but not ask for a free appetizer the next time you are there for that recommendation. We expect recommendations in this regard just the same as we would expect to be burned in effigy if we did a bad job. The other side of it is the ethics of paying for essientally a good reviewm, which this would unintendedly be. We want customers to be honest about our services without any renumeration for either sharing positive feedback or withholding negative feedback.
Downspout strainers are really bad. They are good at doing what they are supposed to do, which is catching debris before it goes into the downspout. The problem is they are too good. They catch everything but all the debris is caught and kept INSIDE the gutter, so instead of a clog, you make a dam. Even worse, where a clog happens over time where debris goes through the downspouts and some gets stuck and build up over time, the strainer will catch everything so you actually get clogs faster than not having them. If you want to keep debris out of downspouts and underground pipes, no clog covers are the best solution as they keep the debris out of the downspouts AND the gutters.
Call us now at 770-677-6690 for a free Gutter Cleaning quote.
Atlanta’s Best Gutter Cleaners was created in answer to unprofessional and fraudulent business practices rampant in the field of gutters and gutter cleaning.