The GutterBrush Blog

This is the time of year when a cold snap can come in anytime and catch you by surprise if your home is not yet prepped for winter.  Here are nine things to check in preparing your home for the coming winter season.

1. Heating System: Your home’s heating system is the front line of defense in keeping your home warm. You need to make sure the furnace or boiler is working before you need it.
2. Air Conditioner: Your window air conditioner or central air conditioner condensing unit needs a little prepping too in order to make it through the winter. You need to prepare the condensing unit for storage including cleaning our leaves and covering the condenser.
3. Chimney and Fireplace: A wood burning fireplace and chimney can be a major source of cold air leaks and other issues in winter. Make sure to check and inspect your fireplace, including making sure the flue operates properly and checking your firebrick.
4. Plumbing: Burst pipes from freezing can cause some of the most expensive repairs in the home. Make sure you protect your plumbing from freezing with techniques such as heating and insulating your pipes. It is also critically important to remove your hoses from any outside faucets.
5. Insulation: The simple process of insulating can reduce energy costs. this includes getting an insulating blanket for your water heater, foam sealing gaskets for outlets and blocking fireplace drafts with a piece of fiberglass insulation.
6. Weather-stripping: An easy way to reduce you heating bill from infiltration is to reduce these drafts of doors and windows with simple weather-stripping.
7. Roof and Gutters: Check your roof and gutters for leaves and debris. Frozen wet leaves in gutters are major source of damage. Protect your gutters with a gutter protection system like GutterBrush.
   
8. Sprinkler System: Another key element of your home winterization plan is winterizing your sprinkler system to prevent your lines from bursting.
9. Landscape: Lastly comes preparing your landscape and equipment for the winter including outdoor deck, furniture and lawn equipment preparation.

By taking a few hours and preparing your home for winter you can get closer to a trouble free winter and just sit back and enjoy the scenery!

Are you hunting for a better way to keep leaves and other debris out of your gutters? There’s plenty of options on the market but almost all of them involve costly installation. Almost all of them. GutterBrush is so simple to install that it should take you just a few minutes to get almost your entire house done. No hassle. No continued expense.

I need GutterBrush? Yes you do.

Clogged gutters can cause major problems for your home. As water backs up, it can flow behind the gutters saturating your fascia board and trapping moisture. Over time this moisture will potentially result in rot, mold and mildew. Protect your home with the simple, affordable, and most effective gutter guard available today. Your home is a big investment and we all want to protect our investments so why not take a step towards doing that with GutterBrush? GutterBrush is a no nonsense Gutter Protection System that makes gutter protection technology available to you in a simple and easy form while remaining affordable. Our GutterBrush system is so straightforward, it’s the obvious choice. Save time, money and protect your home and family with the GutterBrush Simple Gutter Guard System.

The GutterBush gutter guard gutter protection system from GutterBrush Guys, Ltd. will help prevent autumn leaves and other seasonal debris from clogging your gutters and potentially damaging your home and landscaping. Our GutterBrush gutter guard is also a great home improvement idea and one you should consider unless you enjoy cleaning clogged gutters and downspouts every year.

The GutterBrush gutter protection system helps carry leaves, seeds, pine needles, and other debris off the roof during rainfall, allowing rain to enter the gutters but preventing leaves and everything else you don’t want in the gutter from entering the gutters. The leaves and debris slide off the cylindrical gutter guard and fall to the ground below keeping your gutters free of leaves, needles, debris and the like.  Another bonus of using GutterBrush is that they can be installed by anyone who is comfortable on a ladder and this usually only takes, on average, about a couple of hours to install 120 linear feet of GutterBrush including cleaning the gutters.

You can’t go wrong with our simple, affordable, and effective GutterBrush gutter guard system for protecting your gutters this fall and your home year round. Please contact us at 888-397-9433 or info@gutterbrush.com with any questions you might have or to get your very own GutterBrush.

Hopefully this video inspires you to make sure your gutters are not clogged and to get gutter protection from gutterbrush.com!

Clogged Gutters Are A Disaster In The Making! Protect Them From Clogging With Gutterbrush!

We do not know anybody who likes cleaning rain gutters on their property. It’s time consuming and often, frankly, completely nasty, especially if you do not keep up with it on a somewhat regular basis. If you are like many homeowners and think “I’ll take care of that next weekend”, you could end up with massive clogs in your gutters and downspouts…clogs which will cost hundreds of dollars to repair because you have to call a gutter professional to come out, take down your downspouts, clean them out and put them all back together. Instead of spending all of that time and money, why not just install a gutter brush?

The original gutterbrush simple gutter guard will save you time and you won’t have to worry about costly clogs in your downspouts. The product looks like a giant pipe cleaning brush and it sits in your rain gutter channel and acts as a barrier for leaves, twigs, seedpods and other debris while still letting water pass through freely and out the downspout.

Installation is simple and fast. The most difficult part is climbing the ladder up to your roof to set the original gutterbrush down inside of it. But that’s it…you’re done! More importantly they are easy to clean if you ever need to do so. All you have to do is climb back up that pesky ladder; pull the brushes out, remove the debris and put them right back into place.

Why spend a bunch of money if you don’t have to? Why spend a bunch of time cleaning something if you don’t have to? The original GutterBrush is very affordable and you can install it yourself in about an hour and a half and it lasts all year (studies have proven they can also keep your gutters from freezing in the winter). Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Don’t be fooled by imitations that are manufactured outside of the USA using sub standard materials. Insist on the original GutterBrush SImple Gutter Guard!

visit www.gutterbrush.com for more information about this great product.

GutterBrush Guys, Ltd. began offering their simple, affordable, and effective gutter protection system back in 2004 and continues to grow at a very strong yet responsible pace. GutterBrush Guys Ltd. continues to increase our customer base, retail network, and e-commerce presence. Gutterbrush Guys, Ltd. are now focusing on giving, roofers, contractors, painters, and any home service professional the most complete and comprehensive opportunity available for a very competitively priced and profitable professional grade gutter protection system.

Visit www.gutterbrush.com for complete gutter protection information, installation instructions, and an informative installation video for the gutter, roofing, and general contractor or home services professional.  GutterBrush Guys, ltd. also encourages you to visit the web presence of the other gutter protection and leaf guard products available on the market today because they are certain that not a single one provides the same level of detail and information that they dodetail. The GutterBrush Guys, Ltd. present the quality, simplicity, and affordable nature of their product in a transparent way so you can see the value of the opprotunity they are presenting to you. They also spell out their warranty, have detailed installation instructions, as well as an abundance of information covering important safety issues surrounding working with gutter protection.

The GutterBrush Guys, Ltd. also are very happy to offer qualified partners a unique and very effective demo unit that clearly shows the consumer the simplicity, effectiveness, and professional grade quality of GutterBrush simple gutter guard.  The GutterBrush Guys, Ltd. have a solid track record of offering a superior gutter protection product and completely believe that current economic challenges makes their product a welcome and profitable addition to any home service professional’s product/service offerings.

Gutter Brush Guys, Ltd. would like to extend an invitation to any home services professional currently offering roofing and/or gutter protection systems to visit the GutterBrush web site at www.gutterbrush.com and consider becoming an authorized GutterBrush partner and/or installer.

Learn more about GutterBrush simple gutter guard and all things gutter related at www.gutterbrush.com

Have you already decided to move rather than remodel only to realize, like so many others in the same boat, you are still thinking about remodeling anyway? Why? To make your house more appealing to would-be buyers, cut the time it takes to sell it and maybe even get more cash in hand when you sell is why. While you’re remodeling that other part of the house why not tuck in a new master bedroom suite above the addition? You’ll get all of your money back when you eventually sell your house, right?

Not so fast. While many home-remodeling projects are a great way to add value to your home, not all of them are ironclad cash-back guarantees. Before you invest a significant amount of your precious home equity into remodeling projects, it’s wise to do a little homework on what kind of payback you can expect for various home projects in your area.

A good place to start is the Cost vs. Value report published annually by the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, and Remodeling magazine. The report provides a synopsis of the top projects, the average costs of the projects and their average rate of investment return at resale. It also gives you a city-by-city guide on what various home projects will pay back at resale. Real estate experts caution that these numbers can differ significantly depending on your state, city or even neighborhood. So use these numbers as a starting point, but consider getting the advice of a Realtor and/or remodeling contractor before you commit to a big home project. These experts can familiarize you with remodeling payback figures tailored to your state, city., or town.

The fifth project of five to potentially boost your home’s resale value is an attic bedroom remodel. This entails converting unfinished attic space in a two- or three-bedroom house into a finished bedroom and bathroom with shower. It includes a new shed dormer, new windows and closet space in the eaves.

Average payback: 93.5 percent of cost
Estimated job cost: $39,188
National average resale value: $36,649

Because this is a relatively expensive undertaking, real estate experts suggest you do an attic renovation only if you’re going to live in the house for a while (preferably five to 10 years) and enjoy the reclaimed space yourself. Over the long haul, this project adds significant value to your home because it creates brand-new living space and isn’t just a cosmetic improvement. Keep in mind, though, that attic remodels don’t make sense in every neighborhood and part of the country. For example, in Florida, most of the attics aren’t big enough to stand up in, so remodeling them wouldn’t make sense at all. Plus there’s the heat issue — these rooms would be sweltering hot and very expensive to cool.

This is a good example of a remodeling project that would be wise to discuss in advance with a Realtor who’s familiar not just with housing in your area, but in your specific neighborhood. Good Realtors are always happy to spend time talking with you about the wisest renovation projects for your home — even if you’re not planning to sell your home anytime soon.

Other top resale projects from the Cost vs. Value report ranked by percentage of cost recouped at resale, include:

• an upscale bathroom remodel: 93.2 percent.
• a major kitchen remodel: mid-range, 91 percent; upscale: 84.8 percent.
• a deck addition: 90.3 percent.
• basement remodeling: 90.1 percent.
• window replacement: 89.6 percent.
• a bathroom addition: mid-range: 86.4 per cent, upscale 85.8 percent.
• roofing replacement: 84.7 percent.
• a family room addition: 83 percent.
• a master suite addition: mid-range 82.4 per cent; upscale 80.1 percent.
• a home-office remodel: 72.8 percent.

While a good return on your investment is important in every remodeling project, experts say that the most important factor in your decision should still be whether the project improves the way you live in your home now. The fact of remodeling is that you never get your money back instantly. If you’re undertaking a project because you’re going to stay in your home awhile, and it will enhance your lifestyle, then great — do it. It’s tough to put a price on the happiness many young families get from fixing up their house and truly enjoying it for the next 20 years.

Have you already decided to move rather than remodel only to realize, like so many others in the same boat, you are still thinking about remodeling anyway? Why? To make your house more appealing to would-be buyers, cut the time it takes to sell it and maybe even get more cash in hand when you sell is why. While you’re remodeling that other part of the house why not tuck in a new master bedroom suite above the addition? You’ll get all of your money back when you eventually sell your house, right?

Not so fast. While many home-remodeling projects are a great way to add value to your home, not all of them are ironclad cash-back guarantees. Before you invest a significant amount of your precious home equity into remodeling projects, it’s wise to do a little homework on what kind of payback you can expect for various home projects in your area.

A good place to start is the Cost vs. Value report published annually by the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, and Remodeling magazine. The report provides a synopsis of the top projects, the average costs of the projects and their average rate of investment return at resale. It also gives you a city-by-city guide on what various home projects will pay back at resale. Real estate experts caution that these numbers can differ significantly depending on your state, city or even neighborhood. So use these numbers as a starting point, but consider getting the advice of a Realtor and/or remodeling contractor before you commit to a big home project. These experts can familiarize you with remodeling payback figures tailored to your state, city., or town.

The second project of five to potentially boost your home’s resale value is a midrange bathroom remodel. This includes updating an average 5-by-7 foot bathroom that’s at least 25 years old with moderately priced fixtures, a double-sink vanity, a ceramic-tile floor and vinyl wallpaper.

Average payback: 102.2 percent of cost
Estimated job cost: $10,499
National average resale value: $10,727

Improving an existing, but outdated, bathroom is almost always a good investment because an up-to-date bathroom makes your home look like it’s been kept in good repair, and that’s what all prospective homeowners are looking for.

However, do not try to personalize the bathrooms too much or spend megabucks trying to turn them into ultimate home spas. Your home is a valuable asset, and you want to treat it respectfully whenever you remodel. In other words, think twice about adding a pricey imported soaking tub or three separate shower stalls for your growing family’s convenience. Those renovations might not fit the taste of a buyer 10 years down the road. If that happens, the money you spent on your bathroom renovation is down the toilet, so to speak.

So now passengers must pay upwards of $8  for a blanket and pillow on American Airlines? An interesting business strategy would be to lobby the TSA to prohibit passengers from bringing their own blankets and pillows to drive revenue from this new plan. While charging for what used to be included in the price is becoming the norm in many industries it is good to be able to hold our pricing here at GutterBrush Guys, LLC. to 2009 levels. Perhaps the airlines could learn a thing or two from us. Unlikely seeing that American Airlines announced, without any fanfare last week, that it would eliminate free blankets in coach and sell an $8 packet that includes a pillow and blanket starting on the first of May this year.

Why would a company that does business in an increasingly reviled industry make this type of move? It seems that American Airlines predicated its decision on consumer surveys. Wait. We are supposed to believe that customers said they were in favor of this added charge in an an increasingly less than enjoyable consumer experience on the airline with the worst-in-the-nation on-time performance, deplorable acumen in baggage-handling or the grotesque state of its fleet of aircraft? Forgive me but I remain skeptical.

While other airlines also charge for various items to make flights more comfortable it seems that no one is asking the consumer what they want. If they did they would likely find out what we have discovered. People want to be treated fairly and with honesty as well as getting the product they were promised. There is no room for deception or taking advantage of your customer base and their disposable income pool. Perhaps when more customers abandon those companies that deliver a less than stellar customer experience those that do will have a chance to shine brighter than ever before. Until then enjoy your $8 blanket and pillow.