P/00/012 Regulation 3.2 AUSTRALIA Patents Act 1990 ORIGINAL COMPLETE SPECIFICATION INNOVATION PATENT Invention Title: "A CLEANING APPARATUS" The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to me/us: 1 TITLE "A CLEANING APPARATUS" FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to a cleaning apparatus. In particular, the 5 invention relates to a cleaning apparatus to clean leaves and other debris from gutters. However, it should be appreciated that the cleaning apparatus may be used for other applications. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The majority of homes throughout the world have guttering. 10 Guttering provides a method of collecting stormwater that lands on a roof. The water is then transported away from the house by a downpipe to a stormwater drain or a rainwater tank. Therefore, gutters help reduce water and moisture damage to a house. In order for gutters to work effectively, there must be a clear 15 pathway for the water to travel along the gutter. Unfortunately, many homes are located adjacent trees which are taller than the house. Leaves that fall from the tree can fall on the roof and ultimately become lodged in the gutter. This can block the gutter causing water to overflow the gutter causing water to pool adjacent the house which is undesirable. Accordingly, gutters are 20 required to be cleaned regularly to avoid this problem. Unfortunately, gutters are not easily cleaned. This is mainly due to the gutters being located some distance from the ground. Typically, a person needs to climb on to a roof of a house in order to clean the gutter. This can be quite dangerous as a person can easily slip and fall from the 2 roof. As a safety aspect, protection systems are often required to be installed which are both time consuming and expensive to erect. In order to address these problems, US Patent No. 5195209 describes a gutter cleaning system in which a vacuum is connected to a 5 nozzle via a tubular extension. The nozzle is located in the gutter to suck leaves and other debris from the gutter. In order for a user to see if the leaves and other debris have been removed, a camera has been mounted to the nozzle which is linked by an electrical cord to a monitor which displays the images. The monitor is mounted to the tubular extension. In many 10 instances, this gutter cleaning system works very effectively. However, there are some issues. Many houses have gutters of varying heights. Therefore, the length of the tubular extension is required to be increased and/or decreased to cater for the different heights of these gutters. This requires the electrical 15 cord to be lengthened and/or shortened as well as the remounting of the monitor. Further, the electrical cord can become caught on the house or trees located adjacent the gutter as the tubular extension and nozzle are moved along the gutter. This can cause the camera, monitor and/or electrical cord to become dislodged from the nozzle and/or tubular extension. 20 OBJECT OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the invention to overcome and/or alleviate one or more of the above disadvantages and/or to provide the consumer with a useful and/or commercial choice.
3 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In one form, the invention resides in a cleaning apparatus for cleaning gutters, the cleaning apparatus comprising: a vacuum cleaner; 5 a tubular connector attached to the vacuum cleaner; a nozzle attached to the tubular connector; a wireless camera unit connected to the nozzle to capture images located adjacent the nozzle; and a monitor unit to receive and display images captured by the 10 wireless camera unit. Preferably, the monitor unit is mounted to a mounting pack. The cleaning apparatus of any one of the preceding claims wherein the monitor unit includes a monitor and a battery. Preferably, the wireless camera unit includes a camera and a 15 battery. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Embodiments, by way of examples only, will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a cleaning system according to 20 an embodiment of the invention; FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a monitor unit strapped to a user as shown in FIG. 1; and FIG. 3 is a side view of a nozzle of the cleaning system of FIG. 1 located within a gutter.
4 DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT FIG. 1 shows a cleaning apparatus 10 for cleaning gutters being operated by a user. The cleaning apparatus 10 includes a vacuum cleaner 20, a tubular connector 30, a nozzle 40, a wireless camera unit 50 5 and a monitor unit 60. The vacuum cleaner 20 can be of any variety that provides sufficient suction and storage. In this embodiment, the vacuum cleaner 20 is a canister type vacuum cleaner 20. The vacuum cleaner 20 is electrically powered. A wheeled trolley 21 is used to mount the vacuum cleaner 20. A 10 petrol powered electric generator 22 is also mounted on to the trolley 21 that is used to power the vacuum cleaner 20. A rotatable spool 23 is also mounted to the trolley 21. The tubular connector 30 is formed from the combination of a flexible hose 31 and a rigid pipe 32. The flexible hose 31 is connected to the 15 vacuum cleaner 20 and to the rigid pipe 32. The flexible hose 31 is made from polyurethane. The flexible hose 31 can be located around the rotatable spool 23 in order to easily transport the cleaning apparatus 10. The rigid pipe 32 is made from polyurethane sections 33. However, it should be appreciated that the rigid pipe 32 may be made from other materials, such as 20 aluminum sections. The length of the rigid pipe 32 can be varied by adding and/or removing polyurethane sections 33 of rigid pipe 32. The nozzle 40 is U-shaped and connected to the end of the rigid pipe 32. The nozzle 40 is also made from polyurethane sections 41. A cleaning section 42 of the nozzle 40 is narrower in diameter than the rest of 5 the rigid pipe 32. This allows for easier access into a gutter 5 and also provides additional suction. The wireless camera unit 50 is mounted on to the nozzle 40. The wireless camera unit 50 is removably attached to the nozzle 40 although 5 it may be fixed. The wireless camera unit 50 includes a battery 51 which supplies power to a camera 52 which captures images. The monitor unit 60 is wirelessly connected to the camera unit 50 so that images transmitted from the wireless camera unit 50 are received and displayed by the monitor unit 60. The monitor unit 60 includes a monitor 10 61 connected to a battery (not shown). The monitor unit 60 is mounted to a mounting pack 62 with the monitor 61 attached to a flexible arm 63. The flexible arm 63 allows the monitor 61 to be positioned so that a user 6 can easily view the images being displayed by the monitor 61 as shown in FIG. 2. In use, the cleaning apparatus 10 is operated by first switching 15 on the vacuum cleaner 20. This causes suction through the tubular connection 30 and nozzle 40. A user 6 places the nozzle 40 into the gutter 5 as shown in FIG. 3. The user 6 is able to view leaves and other debris in the gutter 5 via the camera unit 50 which transmits images to the monitor unit 60. The user 6 is able to move the nozzle 40 along the gutter 5 20 using the rigid pipe 32 which is connected to the nozzle 40. As there is no electrical cord located along the tubular connector 30, it is less likely to become caught on any part of the house or adjacent trees. Further, an additional polyurethane section 33 can be added to other polyurethane sections 33 of the rigid pipe 32 to access a high gutter. Hence, no 6 adjustments to the camera unit or monitor unit are required. It will also be appreciated that various other changes and modifications may be made to the embodiment described without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.