Easy Way to Clean Gutters

We have a lot of trees on our property, and I've grown weary of having to get out my ladder each spring and clean the leaves from my live oaks out of the gutters. This year I had a brainstorm, and this brainstorm and $9 worth of plumbing parts has made this chore much easier. I decided to make an extension to my leaf blower, and in this Instructable are the steps needed to build such an extension.

I went to my local hardware store and wandered the plumbing isle to get an idea of what I would need, and was amazed that everything I needed came in one kit for a price of $9! With only slight modification, this kit worked for my blower. If you want to build something similar, first measure the nozzle of you blower to make sure the plumbing parts you will need will fit.

Other than the plumbing parts, the remaining supplies I used were:

• a handful of machine screws and nuts
• four sheet metal screws
• silicone adhesive
• two small pieces of scrap aluminum (any metal will do)

Tools used were:

• drill & drill bit
• heat gun
• screwdriver
• needle nose pliers

There were two plumbing elbows in the kit I bought and I only needed one. I took the extra elbow, sawed off one end (leaving 1.5 inches of straight pipe). I heated this end (the sawed off portion) and squeezed it in my vice until its shape matched the nozzle of the blower's nozzle. It took about three tries to get it to match, but it was not difficult. I would heat the entire end, squeeze it in the vice until cool, then heat each side independently and squeeze them until I had a good fit.

Assembling the extension was easy. I simply inserted the straight pipe into the remaining elbow and used the included collar to tighten them together.

My original plan was to simply duct tape the adapter to the blower. Well, that was an amazingly bad idea! I quickly realized I needed a more firm way to put this together.

I took two pieces of aluminum flats from my scrap pile and attached them to the front and back of the blower tube using machine screws and nuts. You want to make sure there is no space between the adapter and the blower tube. You can see on the 3rd photo that I had to use needle nose pliers to insert the screws inside the blower tube.

I did this on both the front and the back, then attached the metal pieces to the adapter (photos 4 & 5). I inserted the machine screws from the inside, because when I want to use the blower for general yard duty, I can remove the adapter and simply leave the screws (and nuts) in place for the next time it needs to do gutter duty.

The final step was to attach the assembled extension to the adapter. Because of the screws in the adapter, I couldn't insert the extension fully into the adapter (it would only go in about an inch). I glued these parts together, then added 4 sheet metal screws to insure it would stay solidly together.

This extension to my blower has worked like a charm. It is easy to use, works great, and is solid. I originally thought I might need to use duct tape where the adapter joins the blower tube, but it has been unnecessary. I also thought I might need to make a nozzle at the end of the extension, but so far I don't think it is needed.

This was not a difficult project, and it is easy to change from a regular landscape blower to a gutter blower.