Gutter Building Codes and Standards

Until they update residential codes on gutter installation, these are the problems in the gutter industry today. 

I, Victor Valencia, the owner of Vic’s gutter filters am a journeyman carpenter who graduated from the Northwest college of construction in Portland, Oregon. I spent most of my construction career as a bridge builder and when things got slow I answered a Craigslist ad making false promises from our major competitor Leaf Filter. Regardless of my background they “hired” me immediately, or so I thought. They actually make false promises, fishing in people to work as a subcontractor for them on Craigslist. You’ll see their post on Craigslist to this day. They hired me as a subcontractor through another subcontractor. They charge the homeowner $10,000, let the salesman walk away with $3,000 and the installer walk off with $200 and this is only for their filters (no gutters). They see the installer’s as just spendable labor. So badly it doesn’t matter to them if the new labor is licensed or not. It’s a shame and it’s an embarrassment that I ever worked with them but I did learn some things. I loved the idea “leaf filter” never clean your gutters again! But their product doesn’t work, it’s cheap plastic and they take advantage of their customers and laborers. I’ve witnessed this first hand but don’t take my word on it? There’s a reason why both leaf filter and leaf guard both have a 2 star rating on every office they own in the country on both yelp and the better business bureau including an F rating with numerous lawsuits. I thought to my self there has to be something else. Something that actually works and doesn’t cost more than your car! After experimenting with multiple products I found out what worked and what didn’t for a gutter guard. 

After establishing Vic’s gutter filters as a gutter filter installation company I knew I eventually I would have to include gutter installation as well. I was blessed to start it off with such an amazing crew. Prior to us installing, I did not have any experience with gutter installation. 4 years of carpentry school and gutter installation was very basic to the point where you couldn’t even find anything about gutters in any of my books! There’s no residential codes on it so why teach about it. The crew I started off with were more than great, I was extremely lucky to have met them. I took what I learned from them and what I learned from my trade school and with that we figured out what gutter companies with 30 years experience couldn’t! The materials we use and how we install them is how we stand by our lifetime guarantee on workmanship, minimum 20 year warranty on our gutters, and lifetime if installed with our gutter filters. Compare that to the industry average of a 1-3 year warranty or worse the taillight warranty!

How We Saved A Customer Thousands!

Let me tell you a little story about a past customer involving everything I’ve talked about. I get a message from a customer asking for a quote for a new gutter replacement, I say to them let me inspect your gutters, the inspection and quote are free and to not let anyone tell them they need to be replaced without a proper inspection. I show up and I am their fourth quote. The other three did not inspect their gutters just tried to sell them new gutters. What happened was that both of their gutters from the front and back were starting to separate from the home with the gutter in the front actually falling off but being saved from their pergola. What caused the gutters to separate were three things. Yes, the homeowner did not clean their gutters in years which will cause the wood that it’s attached to rot, they were actually missing a vital part to their roof called a drip edge which prevents water from going behind the gutter and what would also cause the same wood to rot without it and a sloppy gutter installation. If they would have had one of the other companies install new gutters on their home, unfortunately the results would have been the same and the gutters would have fell again. The drip edge is roofing material not gutter and most gutter companies would just put the blame on the previous worker. But since we have carpentry experience and we are precise with our inspections we were able to clean, repair and install our gutter filters! After we cleaned their gutters?? Surprise! They looked brand new! We repaired, improved their home, saved them money, and helped them from future problems!