Gutter Cleaning Robot: From Ladders to ABB Arms

Every autumn, millions of homeowners lean a ladder against the eaves, climb up with a bucket and scoop wet leaves out of the gutters by hand. A gutter cleaning robot promises to take most of that climbing away, and drones now spray moss and algae off whole roofs. This post looks at how gutters were kept clear before machines, at the small iRobot Looj that crawled along gutters in 2007, at the cleaning drones that made news this week, and at where ABB robots, which already build roof parts in factories, might fit as robots move onto the outside of houses.

A tethered cleaning drone sprays a tiled roof just above the gutter in France. Photo: SI-DRONE prestation / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How gutters were cleared with ladders and scoops

Gutters are old. The Romans brought rainwater systems to Britain, and in 1240 King Henry III ordered the lead gutters on the White Tower in London extended so that rain would stop running down the newly whitewashed walls. Cast iron gutters came in during the late eighteenth century, because iron could be cast in long rigid lengths while lead only worked as a liner in timber troughs. By the 1870s British houses were being built with cast iron gutters and downpipes as standard. Every one of those gutters collected leaves, moss and silt, and someone had to climb up and clear them.

Cast iron gutters, rainwater heads and downpipes on an old stone building in Britain. Photo: Neil Owen / Geograph via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

For most of that history the method did not change: a ladder, gloves, a trowel or scoop, a bucket on a hook and a garden hose to flush the downpipe. The danger is the ladder. In a September 29, 2026 piece, The Weather Channel called gutter cleaning one of the most dangerous fall chores and named overreaching as a main cause of ladder falls. Citing CDC data, it noted that ladder falls hit older adults hardest, with longer hospital stays, more intensive care admissions and a greater risk of death. Hiring a crew costs about $163 to $333 a visit, according to Thumbtack figures in the same article.

Cyrus Brame of Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery clears gutters from a ladder before Hurricane Irene, Virginia, 2011. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The first consumer robot built for the job came from iRobot, the Bedford, Massachusetts company behind the Roomba. It released the Looj on October 1, 2007, in three models priced from $99.99 for the Looj 120 to $169.99 for the Looj 150. The Looj was a narrow tracked crawler with an auger that spun at 500 rpm in either direction to throw leaves and muck out of the gutter. You still climbed up once to set it in place, then drove it along by remote control. The Looj 330 followed in August 2012 with a lower body, swappable auger flaps for tighter gutters, an automatic clean mode and a lithium ion battery.

iRobot's headquarters in Bedford, Massachusetts; the company launched the Looj gutter robot in 2007. Photo: Zoole USA / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Why roof cleaning moved to drones this year

The Looj never made gutter cleaning a robot job for most households. Home magazines this fall are still full of telescopic wands, hose attachments and gutter guards meant to keep people off the ladder, and the mesh or solid covers sold in hardware stores try to stop debris getting in at all. The bigger change is happening on the roof itself. Moss holds water against tiles, and the dark streaks on many asphalt shingle roofs come from Gloeocapsa magma, a cyanobacterium that grows a dark coating to shield itself from sunlight. Contractors used to treat both by walking the roof with a sprayer or a low pressure washer.

A ladder against the eaves of a house during gutter cleaning in England, 2020. Photo: David Hawgood / Geograph via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Cleaning drones are taking over part of that work. A tethered drone carries a spray nozzle while a pump on the ground pushes water or cleaning solution up a hose. On October 1, 2026, Lucid Bots of Charlotte, North Carolina, announced the Sherpa HighLine, a motorized rooftop pulley that carries part of the hose weight so its Sherpa drone can climb higher. In late September it let operators clean a 23 story hotel tower at Monarch Casino Resort Spa in Black Hawk, Colorado, at 280 feet, which the company says is a US record. Lucid Bots says it has $34 million in funding and more than 400 operators in over 40 states. Our post on window and facade cleaning covers the facade side of this work.

A cleaning drone on a hose washes moss from a slate roof in France. Photo: SI-DRONE prestation / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB robots do not climb onto house roofs. They work earlier in the chain, in the factories that make roof parts. At dhp technology an ABB IRB 6700 lifts large solar modules for folding roofs, and ABB arms appear in the truss and panel plants described in our post on roofing automation. That factory work teaches lessons a gutter robot would need, such as moving a tool along a long edge at a fixed distance and stopping before hitting anything. Engineers usually plan and check such paths first in RobotStudio, ABB's simulation software, before a real robot moves.

An ABB IRB 6700 lifts a solar module for a folding roof at dhp technology. Photo: ABB

What a rooftop robot still has to solve

The next step is roof care that needs less skill and less climbing. Drone operators in the United States already need an FAA Part 107 certificate, and The Drone Girl puts a US made cleaning drone system at around $50,000, so drones will mostly stay with service companies rather than homeowners. For houses, the likely path is better crawlers in the gutter, cameras that show the gutter from the ground, and drones that soft wash moss and algae from a set flight path. Black streaks of Gloeocapsa magma on shingles are an easy target, because they show up clearly on camera before and after a wash.

Black streaks of Gloeocapsa magma on an asphalt shingle roof, the kind of growth soft washing removes. Photo: Mcbooz / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Contact is harder than spraying. A robot that scoops packed leaves, refits a sagging bracket or reseals a joint has to press against the house without cracking a tile or knocking itself off the roof. ABB's GoFa CRB 15000 cobot gives an idea of what that takes. It has sensors in its joints, stops when it feels unexpected contact and can be taught a path by hand. ABB's SafeMove software keeps a robot inside set zones and speeds when people are near. Putting arms like these on roofs is only a possibility. No product does it today.

ABB's GoFa cobot is guided by hand and stops when it senses contact. Photo: ABB

Some of the hard parts are being tested on building sites. ETH Zurich's In situ Fabricator, an ABB IRB 4600 on a tracked base, built a curved wall on a real building site, where it had to work out its own position as it moved, a problem a robot on a sloping roof would also face. Cost is the other barrier: a pro gutter clean costs a few hundred dollars, while a cleaning drone costs tens of thousands. Wind, wet tiles and the rule that the robot must never fall all remain unsolved. Until they are, the safest gutter robot will be one that lets you stay on the ground.

ETH Zurich's In situ Fabricator, an ABB IRB 4600 on a tracked base, building a curved wall. Photo: Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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