Gutter Contractor Software in Washington

Rain is the whole reason a Washington gutter company exists, and the numbers are the pitch. Seattle gets under 40 inches a year, most of it from October to April in a drizzle that never stops, and Forks, on the Olympic Peninsula, gets more than 100 inches and calls itself the rainiest town in the lower 48. The coast sits closer to Forks than to Seattle. A gutter here carries water all winter, so the sizing is done for volume. Six-inch gutters and oversized downspouts go on any big roof, and the downspouts run to a drain line or a splash block well away from the foundation, because a wet crawl space is the Puget Sound disease.

Then the trees fill them. Douglas fir and Western red cedar drop needles all year, and the needles go through guards made for leaves. Big-leaf maple drops leaves the size of dinner plates in November. Moss grows in a gutter that holds water and shade, and here it does. The guards that sell are the fine mesh ones, and a company that offers cleaning twice a year has a customer for life.

Wind does the damage that goes to claims. On November 19, 2024, a storm that bottomed out at 942 millibars, likely the strongest ever measured off the Washington coast, put more than 600,000 homes in the dark and dropped trees across the Puget Sound region. The Hanukkah Eve storm of December 14, 2006 cut power to 1.5 million people and took 11 days to repair. East of the Cascades the problem is ice. Spokane winters put an inch of ice in a gutter, and the hangers have to hold it. Washington has no deductible statute of its own.

A gutter company registers with the Department of Labor and Industries, with a $15,000 bond as a specialty contractor, $200,000 in liability coverage, and $50,000 in property damage coverage. Work under $500 that is casual and minor is exempt, and nothing else is. Working without a registration costs $1,200 to $10,000 for each day. Before a residential job of $1,000 or more starts, the customer signs the state's disclosure statement about registration, bonds, and liens, and the contractor keeps it three years. A sale made in the home carries three business days to cancel. Seamless aluminum in five and six inch K-style is most of the work, formed on site from coil, and the work runs all year because the rain does.