August 2013 Waterloov Gutter Guards Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Waterloov® Gutter Guard Co. Provides Homeowners Important Information Regarding Gutters and Gutter Guards With the Release of 2013 Buyers Guide for Gutter Guards OAKHURST, NJ, Aug 1, 2013 With heavy rain falls though out most of the country the importance of getting water away from foundations of homes is of foremost concern. Two main factors contribute to foundations being deluged with water: 1, Poor landscaping resulting in rain water draining to the foundation. 2. Poorly operating gutters caused generally by clogging from leaf and tree debris. To correct the first is to employ a professional landscaper. To correct the second is to have the gutters cleaned and protected with gutter guards to keep gutters and leaders free flowing. With over one hundred different gutter covers and gutter guards from which to choose, many homeowners are overwhelmed Waterloov® Gutter Protection, the nation's leading gutter protection company, has released the 2013 Buyers Guide for Gutter Guards to provide homeowners the important questions to ask any contractor who may install gutter protection on their homes. With release of The 2013 Buyers Guide for Gutter Guards, Waterloov® Gutter Cover Company has provided homeowners with a guide that contains vital question every homeowner should ask of any potential contractor. Homeowners will now have a resource to aid in understanding how to choose the most effective gutter guard system. There are four basic designs from which to choose when selecting a gutter guard system. Most work well in light debris conditions, but are not a good fit for heavy debris conditions. “With over a hundred different gutter guards from which to choose, it can be very overwhelming to choose the right to get the job done. The good news is that 98% of them fit into four basic design types,” states Richard Kuhns, President of R.K. Industries, manufacturer of the Waterloov Gutter Guard. “We compiled a list of questions every homeowner should ask of any company representing gutter protection.” The 2013 Buyers Guide for Gutter Guard provides the eight most important questions to ask, which are: • Everyone says you get a Life-Time Warranty, but what does that actually mean? • Are there any hidden fees later down the road? • Will this system work in all kind of conditions? • Will this system fit any kind of roof? • Will this system actually collect my valley water or will it fall onto my head as I go in my home? • Is my roof warranty void once you put your system on my roof? • Does your product guarantee that I will never have to climb a ladder again? • If for any reason the gutter cover itself gets clogged, will you come out to clean it and how much do you charge? • What maintenance should I expect with gutter guards and who does it? The 2013 Buyers Guide for Gutter Guards can be easily downloaded by going to the Waterloov.com website. To discover the differences between the four basic designs a detailed analysis of each is at www.leafguards.com About Waterloov Gutter Cover Co, Div of R. K. Industries Inc. The Waterloov Gutter Guard system is one of the top rated gutter guards by a Consumer Reports. The Waterloov Gutter Protection system is one of two systems available with two rows of louvers in the front vertical surface. The size and amount if debris that can get into the gutter is limited to the size of the openings. Whereas most gutter guards have openings in the horizontal surface that actually attracts debris, the openings in the Waterloov design are in the vertical surface so gravity works for you instead of against you. Twenty four years of service has demonstrated that gutters protected by the double row louvered system never clog inside and any maintenance that may be required in heavy heavy debris conditions is done by the homeowner with a telescopic pole and brush—never a need to call for servicing. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been installed through out the country with Waterloov. For more information about Waterloov Gutter Guards visit the website or call (800) 841-RAIN (7246). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Contact: Michael Nicolosi Waterloov® Gutter Cover Co. div of R. K. Industries Oakhurst, NJ 07755 USA 732-531-1123 michael@Waterloov.com http://www.waterloov.com

What to do before and after getting a new roof on your home!

Getting A New Roof Can Cost Thousands in Gutter Guard Damage!

Or

Can Your Roofer Destroy Your Gutter Guards and Cost You Thousands of Dollars

Like they say oil and water don't mix, often times roofers and gutter guards don't mix either. In fact, roofers can do thousands of dollars of damage to gutter guard systems.

Many gutter guard systems such as the Waterloov Gutter Cover system can cost several thousand dollars to protect gutters from clogging with tree debris.

Often when the homeowner asks the roofing contractor about what to do about the gutter protection system on their home, the roofer will say, “Don't worry about it, we'll take care of it—we know what to do.”

What they are really saying is, “If you don't call your gutter guard contractor, you're taking a crap shoot with us because we don't know diddles about how to replace the system so it will work properly.”

What kind of mistakes can roofers make? The better question is, “What mistake will they make?

“With over twenty years of experience, I've seen all types of mistakes, says Richard Kuhns, President of R.K. Industries manufacturer of the Waterloov Gutter Guard.

Some mistakes are made because roofing is laborious heavy work. A pack of shingles weighs nearly seventy pounds per bundle. Sometimes, the shingles are lifted onto the roof with a spider (special fork lift). Sometimes a conveyor belt is used to get them onto the roof and the sometimes they have to be carried up a ladder which is leaned against the gutter.

When they are carried up by hand, gutters and gutter guards suffer. The gutters get dented and the gutter guards can easily get squashed.

If the roofer is not removing an old roof and simply going over the first roof, a mistake often made is that the roofer nails the under course of the roof through the shingle, gutter guard and into the roof. Of course if no damage or crushing of the gutter guards occur, there's no problem, but if the gutter guards are crushed or the gutters damaged, the gutter protectors won't work—tree debris will enter through the flattened louvers and clog the gutter. Additionally crushed gutters covers are rather ugly with a new roof.

Result: Depending on how the gutter covers were nailed into the roofing, the gutter guards have to be sheared in order to remove them. In this case, the gutter guards are totally destroyed and complete replacement is necessary at a cost of over $20 per foot. Often times the roofer has already been paid and getting reimbursement for the destroyed gutter covers is a challenge.

Sometimes, using a pry bar, the nails can be removed from the shingle and gutter guard in order to remove it and fix it or replace it. While not cheap, it's a better alternative to replacing the entire gutter guard.

Typically roofers will install the under course of the new roof at the same position the roof being covered is. However, in a rare case the roofer installed the under course of the new roof at the top edge of the gutter guard leaving the old roof and gutter guard to protect the first ten inches of roofing above the gutter.

Result: Water got under the gutter guards and old shingles and rotted out the entire fascia board. The rotted fascia boards had to be removed—very laborious since the rotted wood had no integrity making its removal very time consuming. A full width of gutter coil has to be installed beneath the new roof as flashing as an option to feathering in roofing shingles. The homeowner had a major expense to replace fascia, install flashing, new gutters and new gutter guards simply because of an ignorant roofing contractor.

In many cases, the old roofing has to be removed in order to install a new roof. In this case, roofers often remove the gutter guards. Sometimes they don't have the right tools and simply rip them out—not easy to do and it totally destroys the gutter guards.

Often times a lot of roofing debris gets into the gutter and instead of cleaning out the roofing debris, the roofer re installs the gutter guards. Again, sometimes the nail the gutter guards to the roof making it very laborious to remove them and clean the gutters of roofing debris. If the homeowner is lucky, the gutter covers are not nailed into the roofing and removing the debris left in the gutter is fast and simple with a small trip charge and a half hour or so of labor.

Another mistake roofers make when reinstalling the gutter guards is that they don't install the end-caps correctly.

Result: the following spring gutters are overflowing because birds have gotten through the end-cap and built a nest. Again, if the gutter protection system is nailed into the roofing, it can be very laborious and expensive to have the bird nests removed. Other wise, it's a small trip charge plus a half hour or so of labor.

Another mistake roofers make is that when they reinstall the gutter guards, they overlap them too much and end up short a few feet. One roofer, rather than purchasing more gutter guards, wanted to finish the job and get paid right away so what he did was to bend a piece of aluminum to look like the gutter guard. And where there were supposed to be louvers to collect the water, he took a permanent black  magic marker and drew in louvers. The homeowner had no idea as to why water was not being collected in that section of gutter.

Another mistake roofers make is the same mistake that Consumers Report made when they first tested the Waterloov gutter guard and that is they install the front lip of the gutter guard on top of the lip of the gutter instead of under the front lip of the gutter. This causes massive overflow of water.

Again, if the gutter guards are nailed into the roofing, it's laborious and expensive to fix. Otherwise, it's a trip charge and up to about 5 hours of labor to remove and reinstall the gutter guards.

Another mistake roofers make is that when they reinstall the gutter guards, if the home has valleys, they don't reinstall the water diverters or install them incorrectly. Usually this isn't a big problem and at most it's a small trip charge plus a half hour of labor to install diverters.

Yes, just as oil and water don't mix, roofers and gutter guards rarely mix. The best advice for the homeowner is to call the gutter guard contractor to remove and reinstall the gutter guards.

Richard Kuhns B.S.Ch.E. Engineer and inventor of good gutter guards at http://www.niagaraguttercover.com better gutter guards at http://www.carefreegutters.com/ and the best gutter guards at http://www.waterloov.com and http://www.NumberOneGutterProtector.com

The Truth About Gutter Protectors and Leaf Guards

All leaf guards and gutter guards are not created equal. A gutter cover or gutter protector has to do three basic tasks:
1. Catch all the water.
2. Keep leaves and debris out of the gutter.
3. Be able to be maintained easily by the homeowner.

In mild-to-heavy debris conditions all gutter covers except one fail to do all three tasks effectively.

The principal of surface adhesion is what makes all gutter solid top gutter protectors work. There all have a solid top and a curved front surface that leads the water downward and into the gutter.

Before investing in gutter guards it makes sense to do some research. After all a product that really does its job can cost thousands of dollars. However when it comes to gutter guards, more money doesn't necessarily mean a better performing product. Remember that salesmen are good at telling you what they think you want to hear.

Yet choosing the wrong product can be a night mare; you could end up with birds and animals living in your gutters and if they clog, you’ll have no way of getting into your gutters to clean them; or worse yet your roof could start leaking. And worse yet overflowing gutters could leak into your basement providing a fertile environment for toxic mold.

Basically there are six different types of gutter protection devices:
1. Screens-the basic ones are flat and made of plastic, metal or wire with square openings, round holes, and louvered openings. More sophisticated screens have steps, rounded tops, or troughs. Debris lays on the top of the screen, dries, and is then pummeled by rain through the openings to clog the gutter inside; or the debris clogs the screening device keeping water from getting into the gutter. Basically they work if the homeowner is willing to go up the ladder to clean them and replace the ones blown out by storms or hijacked by squirrels.

2. Membranes, filters, and brushes installed in or on existing gutters. One of them has a solid top with a filter strip in it. It requires replacement every few years (sometimes the squirrels help with the job). Others are basically brushes or meshes installed in the gutter. Essentially they clog like screens. One manufacturer advertises that the benefit is that the brush can be removed and cleaned. Can you imagine removing a brush full of mucky debris and shaking it out? You'll need to wear a rain coat and then power wash your home.

3. Flat solid top with rounded front nose--fin type. It's one longitudinal fin along the entire length of the gutter-more about them later.

4. Flat solid top with rounded front nose and a trough--fin type with trough.

5. Rain dispersal and flipping type of gutters. Leaves lay on top of the rain dispersal system and it also fails to disperse slow rain fall. The flipping gutter seems a good idea until you realize that gutter may be full of putrid debris and water being flipped on top of you and that the gutters warp rendering the locking mechanism ineffective and what about downspouts—they still clog?

6. Flat solid top with rounded front nose and a double row louvered front vertical surface such as the Waterloov Gutter Protection System.

Which gutter covers may not collect all the water—the first task? Answer: Those that have a series of bends on the nose of the gutter guard or have a very tight radius. The larger the radius and the smoother the radius, the more water that the gutter cover will collect, otherwise the water just flies off onto the ground in heavy rainfall conditions.

More importantly, if your roof has a valley there is little likely hood that rain water can be collected unless you use gutter screens (the first type) or the sixth type of gutter guard--more later.

The next job a gutter cover has to do is keep the gutters clean. Most any leaf guard will keep gutters clean in a light debris environment. However, in mild-to-heavy debris conditions—especially in the spring time--debris will adhere to the rounded front surface of the third type (fin) and fourth type (fin with trough) of gutter guards and go into the gutter and or the trough.

The last concern is about the ease of maintenance of the gutter leaf guard. Truth is that most manufacturers will either tell you out right that no maintenance will ever be required or they will infer that none will be required. But think about this a moment. If you need to clean your gutters several times during the fall, would you honestly believe that you'll never have to do anything to maintain your gutter guards? Asking a homeowner to believe that there is no maintenance required is like asking him to believe in Santa Claus.

The reality is that all six types of gutter protectors will clog in mild-to-heavy debris conditions. The important question is, "Where"?

The third and fourth types of products require the gutter to be cleaned inside. Another downfall of one of them is that it’s held in place with clips that work loose causing the cover to collapse into the gutter. Because patents have expired, you'll also notice that many of third type are very similar in design and appearance. One of them actually has sieve type openings on the top of it. But isn’t that a screen and won’t it clog just like screens? Of course it will.

To maintain all the system so far mentioned means that someone has to climb a ladder and clean the gutter and or the gutter cover. Also some fin types are nailed into the roofing which means that nails need to be removed from the roofing to remove the product which could contribute to roofing leaks.

All products thus far mentioned have to be maintained by having someone climb a ladder and clean the gutter or the openings in the gutter cover. With some of the fin type products, nails need to be removed from the roofing to remove the product which could contribute to roofing leaks.

Yet there is one gutter protector that does live up to all its promises--the Waterloov^® Gutter Protection System, manufactured by R. K. Industries of Neptune NJ., which uses two rows of interspersed louvers in the front vertical surface to collect rain water and limit the size of the debris that can enter the gutter. R. K. Industries also is the only company that manufactures the patented ValleyFall™ product for collecting water in valley configurations.

Fortunately the Waterloov^® Gutter Protector (with a twenty year track record since 1989) in heavy debris conditions has been found that gutters never clog inside; and when the front vertical louvers clog, the debris can be easily brushed away with a telescopic pole and brush by the home owner. They call this "Suit and Tie" maintenance because the homeowner can literally wear a suit and tie while doing it as it's not a dirty job. In fact 85% of homeowners never need to perform any maintenance and of the other 15% many only need to brush their systems every year or two.

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Local Service Call

We were called for a service call in Atlantic Highlands NJ. The customer told us the covers were raised and the gutter was overflowing. We would expect that if the Waterloov Gutter Guards are disturbed, debris would get in in sufficient quantity to clog the gutter.

The few times this has happened, it's the back edge of the Waterloov Gutter Guard lifting up from the shingle, but this is not what we found. Instead we found two gutter guards (six feet) of the front lower lip of the gutter guard raised above the front gutter lip. And when we lifted them another inch to peek inside we saw evidence of a bird's nest.

Yes, just the inch or so that the gutter guards were raised up above the gutter lip was enough space for the bird to enter. Fortunately there were no eggs or baby birds and five minutes later, the nest was removed and the Waterloov Gutter covers reinstalled.

A thousand dollar cup of coffee

A thousand dollar cup of coffee

While driving the box truck, two of my guys decided to stop in at McDonalds for their coffee special. The driver of the box truck made a drive-way mistake and turned into Hertz Rental Car instead. Being a bit anxious about turning around in a tight space with a big truck he forgot how high the truck is and backed into the corner of the Hertz building.

He damaged the corner of the gutter, fascia, aluminum wrap and even part of the rafter. Close inspection of the corner showed that it was a regular target for large trucks as the gutter had a two foot piece that was replaced sometime before and a section of the aluminum wrap was white instead of the dark gray that every thing else was.

Of course the manager of Hertz was concerned when he was notified of the damage. He was thinking it would be a big problem to file insurance claims and then get a company to do the repairs. Fortunately for him and us, we do this kind of work routinely.

Any one else would have done a piece meal repair as had been done before. Technically all that was  necessary was to replace 5 feet of gutter which could have been any color sprayed with dark gray paint, replace 3 feet of aluminum wrap and reinstall the fascia and he could have been on our way.

But no, Jeff, manager of our Mark of Perfection Co, decided to send a helper for a half hour ride to the warehouse and get not ten feet but sixty feet of the right color of coil. Jeff ripped off the entire 60 feet of gutter—not just six feet and replace it with seamless gutter. Not only that, he removed a section of the fascia board and repaired the rafter beneath it all. He did a class A job using 12 man hours where a 4 hour job was necessary and the our company didn't get a dime and most likely the manager will never remember who we are, but Jeff will remember that the job was done right.

Jeff is that kind of guy, for instance, where others would reuse stainless steel screws on a job that never ever wear out, he will not—his reponse is that, “the customer paid for 'new' materials.”

So you can imagine what kind of installation a customer gets when he installs our Waterloov® Gutter Guards. He always goes the extra mile to make it right which is why our customers of Waterloov® Gutter Covers are satisfied customers.

So how much did that cup of coffee really cost? When we add up all the work, materials, and labor it was nearly a thousand dollars of work—the thousand dollar cup of coffee.

Waterloov service call

 We arrived at our customer's home in Fair Haven NJ to do a routine servicing of the Waterloov gutter guard. The advantage Waterloov has over all other systems is that it can be serviced from the ground.

While some manufacturers of gutter guards would have you believe that no servicing is ever necessary, the truth is that in heavy debris conditions all gutter guards require servicing. The benefit with the Waterloov Gutter Guard, is that it's easy to see where servicing is required. With this customer the entire 40' run of second story gutters requires brushing once a year to keep them functioning.


While we were there we noticed that the last foot or so of gutter and Waterloov Gutter Guards had been somewhat smashed by hurricane Sandy. The last two feet of the Waterloov gutter guards directly over the downspout were not collecting water.


It took us fifteen minutes to put up a ladder and take a closer look. It also gave us a perfect opportunity to look inside and see how the gutters were doing after fifteen years of service. Photo attached showing nothing inside the gutter but a dead spider. That itsy bitsy spider didn't make it down the spout.


Five minutes of working on the gutter and resealing the end-cap that had been knocked loose had it once again ready for the next rain. Technically, the homeowner would qualify for a new gutter from her homeowner's insurance. Problem is that her deductible is higher than what the cost of replacement  would be. So since this gutter is high and basically out of sight (no esthetic concerns) the repair will do fine.

Another two minutes of reforming the bent Waterloov gutter covers to make them functioning were all that was necessary. Two minutes later and they were installed on the repaired gutter for a total cost to the homeowner of just $20.


Again, if this damage were on a lower more visible gutter, replacement of the gutter as well as the damaged two feet of Waterloov panels would have made sense. However, in this case, the only concern was to have the system function and keep the gutters clean inside.

With a system like Leaf Guard, this would not have been an option--the entire gutter would have had to have been replace at a cost of about $500. That would have been out of pocket for the homeowner as the deductible is $500.

Askthe Engineer about copper and aluminum reactivity

Question: I have copper gutters on my home. They were installed by the previous homeowner. I'd like to get gutter covers installed but don't want the extra expense of copper. Being two dissimilar metals, how do you insulate the aluminum gutter guards from my copper gutters.

Answer: In spite of the very low chemical reactivity of copper and aluminum we did initially (21 years ago) insulate the aluminum gutter guards (then it was unpainted) from copper.

A couple years later when we inspected these jobs we found that the insulation we chose had deteriorated. Nevertheless, just as the reactivity tables suggest, there was no visible signs of interaction between the copper and aluminum. There was however major reactivity between the plated steel screws and copper.

We switched to a 410 grade magnetic stainless screw and stopped insulating between the copper and aluminum. Now, nearly twenty years later, we have not observed any reactivity between the aluminum (we now use painted aluminum) and copper. The stainless screws are also nonreactive.

Mr Marker

It's been a quite spring. With over two thousand Waterloov^® installations locally, we've only had two service calls. I feel like the Maytag Repair man. I wonder if this is really a dream or if our customers have lost our phone number.

But then a week ago, a lady whom we installed in 1999 called to inform us that she was having water overflow from her gutters covered with Waterloov^®. It was the first time we heard from her in all that time. When customers call with this issue, we've learned to ask a couple basic questions: The first question being--"Have you had a new roof installed recently?"

Sure enough she had a new roof installed just a couple years ago which is a big red flag. The biggest threat to the Waterloov system working is a bad roofer.

Here is a list of some of things careless or just plain bad roofers have done to Waterloov^®.

1.      Remove the product and reinstall it incorrectly. They reinstall the panels with the lip of the panel on top of the gutter lip causing over shoot.

2.      Get shingle scraps, roof grit and other construction debris inside the gutters.

3.      They beat them up and dent the panels and then nail them into the roof making it impossible to remove them and install them correctly.

4.      They step on the panels and flatten them or drag the shingle bundles of them and scrape off the paint.

5.      They don't overlap the panels and leave space between the panels or they overlap them too much and don't have enough to cover all the gutters.

( I remember one roofer who did #5. He ended up being about six feet short and rather than contact us, he took a piece of metal and bent it to match the contour of the Waterloov panel and where there are supposed to be louvers in the front vertical surface, he used a black permanent magic marker to draw louvers. He installed this fake cover on an upper gutter where customer could not see the difference between real louvers and fake louvers. Of course the rain water overshot the gutters and the homeowner called us to fix it.)

Fortunately for this customer, the roofing contractor was a fairly good one and did not make any of the above mistakes he just didn’t clean the gutter adequately before reinstalling the Waterloov panels.

Her problem turned out to involve a direct pipe. Above her garage, she had an upper long gutter with a leader dropping down and into the top of a Waterloov panel on the first level above her garage. We call that a "direct pipe."  And right there at that point the water was coming over the gutter.

There was no debris collecting on the louvers and looking at it from the ground, we could see no reason for the overflow. To investigate we removed the Waterloov gutter guard right at the point the leader dumped into it and what we saw inside was a build up--a dam--of heavy shingle grit that had washed down from the upper gutter and deposited inside the gutter at the outlet tube which was slightly raised creating a dam.

While grit that normally washes through the louvers is easily flushed through the system, this was just too much grit. Not to worry though, with a few hand scoops the grit was removed and the panel reinstalled to finish the service call. The good news is that the service call was a minor charge as opposed to what might have happened if the roofer had committed some of the thing I listed above.

With a new fifty year roof installed, I doubt that we'll ever hear from this homeowner again unless a falling tree limb does some damage.  

 

          Waterloov Gutter Protection