iRobot 12501 Looj 125 Remote Controlled Cordless Electric Gutter Cleaning Robot With Belt Clip
by iRobot
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List Price: Our Price: $129.00 You Save: $0.99 (1%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $79.41 (click here) Category: Lawn & Patio See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of iRobot 12501 Looj 125 Remote Controlled Cordless Electric Gutter Cleaning Robot With Belt Clip
Customer Review: OKay, but definitely requires patience
Summary: 3 Stars
I have an older home with box gutters. The last time I was on the roof, the ladder moved as I tried to get off the roof which spooked me. A distant neighbor had a serious accident as well. As a result, I usually pay a roofer to clean the gutters. Unfortunately, they can take several weeks to come out and do the cleaning and I am an impatient person.
On our house, the gutters are 40' from the ground, so there isn't a convenient way to use the looj from the ground. I can access the gutters from the roof via dormers so my method of using the looj was to tie a rope to the looj and drive it into the gutters that were 3 or 4 feet below me.
Prior to looj'ing, I had 3 main problems around the downspouts. Roofing companies put small wire traps over the gutter to keep the downspouts from clogging. Three of these were clogged at the trap. The first one was relatively straight forward although I kept getting caught on the trap. Usually backing up and going forward would resolve the problem, but frequently I needed to use the rope with forward motion on the looj to get it to figure out how to get around the trap. This worked relatively well and after 20 minutes I had cleared the gutter. Unfortunately, I had also worked the trap free and had no way to retrieve it.
I moved to the second gutter to repeat the process. This one was pretty easy although, again, I had to convince the looj to bypass the gutter trap.
During the cleaning of the third gutter, I lost the auger twice. Luckily, I was able to drag it back using the looj and retrieve it and resinstall it.
During the cleaning of the fourth gutter, I lost the auger once and eventually lost one of the treads. I was unable to retrieve the tread, so I need to go to irobot.com and order another two. It sure would be nice if Amazon carried replacement parts.
I rate the Looj about a 3. Outside of a human going up on the roof (and the $150ish price tag that comes with it, the looj is the best thing out there, but it's not without its issues.
Customer Review: Great idea but doesn't decrease work
Summary: 2 Stars
This is a great idea for a robot. I recently put gutters on my two story home which is shaded by a giant tree. After 3 months of Springtime leaf shedding, I saw that I needed to clean the gutters so I thought Looj would be better than using my hands and moving the ladder every 5 feet.
When unboxing the Looj it looked pretty well made. After charging the battery for 16 hours, I climbed my 30ft ladder and had to scoop out a spot for the Looj in my gutters. It worked well for a couple feet but hit a dense spot of leaves and started climbing out of the gutter. After reversing the auger direction and continuously trying to break up the pile of leaves, I had no luck and had to move the ladder over to clear it by hand. At this time, the battery cover for the remote fell off and got lost in my yard for a while, which was very annoying. After finally finding the cover and batteries which fell out, I couldn't get the cover to stay put so had to continuously apply pressure (I guess I could have gone inside and taped it shut). For the less dense areas of leaves I was successful in getting the Looj to clean the gutters. However, when it hit more dense areas, the Looj would stop traveling and its auger would stop as if the motor overheated. I say that because it would work fine after waiting about 20 seconds.
With the battery cover refusing to stay latched and the Looj's inability to cut through dense leaves without me having to reposition my ladder, I don't think the Looj will be worth the money. I also have reliability concerns with the rubber tracks rubbing against sharp parts within my gutters. I would rather have spent the money on a lightweight mulching blower/vacuum (Toro Super Recycler) with extension tubes, which is what I will do. That way I won't have to clean up leaves either.
Customer Review: Flings muck all over, doesn't necessarily fit all gutters
Summary: 2 Stars
After noticing that my new house had completely clogged gutters, I rushed to the computer to buy the Looj. I'm a huge iRobot fan, and the price point was low enough I didn't have to ask my wife's permission!
I couldn't rush out and use "my new toy" because the battery takes 15 hours to charge.
I just used it for the first time, and was pretty impressed. First-off, it is definitely NOT a toy. It's pretty darned effective, when it works.
However, there were a few complicating factors.
1) Some of my gutters are too thin for the Looj, so I have to do them by hand.
2) The house has these nifty ice melting wires right on the edge of the shingles... and the Looj kept getting caught in them. I was usually able to free it by turning the auger backwards (slinging muck on the side of the roof) and reversing direction, but I had to free it up by hand a few times.
3) For really mucked up areas, even the mighty Looj was outgunned.
4) What it got, it did really well. But that auger... just slung the muck away from the roof. Onto me (even though I was standing 15 feet away), onto the car (which had to be washed anyway), and onto the patio (which my wife is ready to kill me for!)
So all in all, iRobot has a really good start here, but not everyone can use it... and even for those that can, I'd suggest waiting until they come up with a model with a built in garbage bag before you get one!
Customer Review: The Looj is a light-weight
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought a Looj several years ago, but it's sat in my garage for at least a year. I find bringing my blower up the ladder works much better for whenever I do gutter cleaning. The Looj can be helpful - it will work okay on a full battery charge with few leaves in a dry gutter. This is not the typical case for me. It usually rains enough around where I live that the gutter is often wet and the mucky leaves inside are at least damp. The Looj takes forever in this case just to get a few feet done (if it can). Many times I've taken the Looj up to my gutter, only to spend over an hour getting it to move back and forth to clean a very small section. Often it also would get stuck, causing me to have to move my ladder to rescue it. Also, the rubber spinning blades actually lap dirty, mucky water all over my gutter so it looks dirty down the side. I then have to either have a nasty looking gutter or wipe it down the whole length (I tried just shooting water from a hose.. unfortunately, it doesn't come off that easy).
Anyway, the Looj would be great if it worked, but it doesn't work well at all for me. When there's a robot that I can stay on the ground, drop in the gutter with a pole and know it's going to do it's business well and without me, maybe I'll buy another robot.
Customer Review: It does the job!
Summary: 5 Stars
The previous owners had not cleaned the gutters in our new home for well over a year. And a few days before we received the Looj it had rained heavily. I figured stuffed, wet gutters would give the Looj more than it could handle. But that was not the case. The "little guy" performed absolutely beautifully. It got out the dried leaves, the wet leaves, the small sticks, and the accumulation of grit from the roof shingles. It turned what would have been a miserable three plus hour job by hand into a fun and painless 40 minutes. Note that for tough clogs like this you cannot simply have the Looj plow through. You must work it forward and backward as the directions suggest. It takes a bit to get the hang of the technique but once you do it works fine. I don't know why some of the other reviewers had trouble, but from my experience, THE LOOJ WORKS!