Best way to access my gutters/fascia for cleaning and painting?

[Michael Yadfar]

I bought a new house recently, and the only major job I have to do is clean the gutters and paint the fascia/soffit. I have a really big ladder that can reach the roof on the sides of the house, but my biggest obstacle is the front of the house. I can’t reach from the porch roof, and I don’t feel safe putting a ladder on that roof. The ladder would have to be on a big angle if I just went straight from the front. I was also considering renting a manlift to make the whole project easier, but it would be a fortune to rent one that’s the size I need.
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[Tom M King]

I just priced a manlift rental today, and it's $160 a day for a 40' tow-able. That was the smallest one they had.

[Michael Yadfar]

The size I need is like $650 a day. I can’t get a small one because it has to be parked back a bit to be on level ground.

[Jim Becker]

I take the safe route...I hire someone to do my gutters.

Perhaps for painting the facia/soffit in the front, you can stand on the porch roof and use a brush/roller with a short extension handle.

[Bruce Wrenn]

As for cleaning out gutters, if your budget can stand it, look at "Leaf Guard" gutters. They are not cheap, but you never have to clean them again. As for ladder on porch, I turn a shingle up at each end, and nail a 2 X 4, or 2 X 6 flat ways across roof to butt bottom of ladder to. Nail in area under turned up shingle, leaving head of nail up about 1/8", so as to be able to pull it out. Patch nail hole with some roof cement.. With all those windows, you will need a ladder brace to span windows.

[Tom M King]

The towable ones have hydraulic legs that you lower to level, and stabilize the base, so it doesn't have to be parked on very level ground.

[Jerome Stanek]

Also when renting ask for the weekly or monthly rate. When I had to rent something it was cheaper to rent it for a month then for just three days.

[William Chain]

I pay $90/quarter to have my gutters cleaned. At the rental rates discussed, it seems paying someone to do all the aforementioned work is the way to roll. Cleaning and painting fascia is hardly worth death by ladder. 🤔

[Steve Rozmiarek]

You cold scaffold off the porch roof, however, by the time you were done with putting it up, you'd wish you would have just rented the lift.

[Al Launier]

You can rent a boom lift, but are you comfortable using one? Do what is safe for you and hire out the services of a contractor who can do those areas you don't feel secure in doing yourself. Falling off a high place is not something you want to experience. Know your limits! If you do hire someone be sure they are properly insured (in writing), and yourself as well, so that should they hurt themselves you aren't sued.

[Alan Rutherford]

I have a covered porch on all 4 sides of my house and the pitch is a bit steeper than your porch roof. The roofing material is steel. You can't take a single step safely without holding on to something.

I put 3/8" lag eye bolts through the siding and into studs at 6-8' intervals all the way around the house. I also have a few at the top of a couple of windows where I get on and off the porch roof.

I made some sections of scaffolding angled to fit the slope of the roof and I can hook them into eye bolts for a level work surface, although a 2x4 with ropes attached to each end is footing enough for some purposes. I also have and religiously use a serious safety harness.

[Dave Zellers]

I put 3/8" lag eye bolts through the siding and into studs at 6-8' intervals all the way around the house. I also have a few at the top of a couple of windows where I get on and off the porch roof.

I made some sections of scaffolding angled to fit the slope of the roof and I can hook them into eye bolts for a level work surface, although a 2x4 with ropes attached to each end is footing enough for some purposes. I also have and religiously use a serious safety harness.

+1 to this! My situation does not involve scaffolding but I attach a bungie cord to the eye bolt and the bottom step of the ladder, and can then use the ladder knowing that it will not slip out from under me on the 5 pitch roof. I have total confidence in that situation.

[Tom M King]

The point about using safety eye screws is a good one. I've never built a new house, or worked on an old one without leaving some strategically placed stainless steel eye screws. I always tie off with small sailboat line though, and never would want to trust bungee cord.

The picture shows an example. The lowest ladder, up under the 26' high soffit is there to set the safety eye screw-3/8 x 4" of threads into a Heart Pine 4x8 ceiling joist projection. Even going up that ladder, the pulley on the roof is for a safety line that comes back down to my harness. The 3,900 lb. trailer is sitting where it is for an anchor point of the belaying device manned by a big, strong helper. The safety line pulley is anchored on the other side of the roof to my truck. I didn't even go up the first ladder without a safety harness on.

Often, the rigging of safeties takes more time than the work on the roof, but we don't do such without it.

The second ladder is tied securely, at the top, to the safety eye. The eyes help a lot with lowering tall ladders too. Before I come down, a line is tied to the top of the ladder, the bottom is pulled out, and the line let down to "fly" the top of the ladder down. It's many times easier than man-handling a heavy ladder back down.

I have built lightweight stages to set on porch roofs that get tied back to the safety eyes.

The pricing of the man lift that I quoted earlier in the thread was to get an Osprey nest off the top of the 43 foot tall chimney on the other end of the house. It's cheaper to rent the lift, than our time for setting all the safeties that would be needed.

[Brian Elfert]

Also when renting ask for the weekly or monthly rate. When I had to rent something it was cheaper to rent it for a month then for just three days.

I find for less expensive items that the monthly rate is more than just buying the item outright! Home Depot rents tools like reciprocating saws and it would be cheaper to just buy a saw than rent it for a month.

[Alan Rutherford]

We got home from a tiring trip last year just in time for the forecast for hurricane Irma to put us right in the path. Our windows had never been covered. There were studs for plywood panels around the windows but they were useless. I scrounged materials, removed the studs and covered the upstairs windows on 2 sides of the house. It wasn't pretty and at 77 years old it wasn't easy but it worked and never felt unsafe. In the first picture I'm supported by taut lines to 2 eye-bolts at the sides of the windows. A board tied to eye-bolts is lower on the porch roof for safety and to help when I lifted materials onto the roof.

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In this picture I'm resting my foot against a 2x4 tied to eye-bolts 6" above the roofing and had just thrown a board off the roof. The forecast continued to shift and we had no damage. It felt really good to uncover the windows.

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FWIW: The house is unpainted cedar. I installed the eye-bolts to make it practical to paint it.