Sergio Arceo was about 10 or 11 when his father started a gutter company, and the boy went along. He worked after school and over every break from school, on a crew of two or three people. Sergio puts the start around 2009, maybe a little before. “I can’t give you an exact date,” he says.
He learned the trade on those jobs: gutter systems, drainage, covers and guards. Since about 2020 he has held the majority of the company. His father is still his partner and still on job sites. One homeowner who had new gutters and a splash diverter put in noted that Sergio helped her settle on the options, and that his dad and the crew did the installing.
The rules came with the job. “He’s very old school, very traditional,” Sergio says of his father. “He taught me being 15 minutes early is on time, and being on time is late.” The other half was keeping your word. “If you say you’re going to do something, or if you say you’re going to be somewhere at a certain time, that reflects a lot on you as a person,” he says.
He protects that by not taking on more than the crew can do. “We don’t want to bite off more than we can chew,” he says. Dates and rough time frames get worked out at the first visit, while he is at the house for the inspection or quote. Given the choice, he says, he would take a slower approach and get the dates right.
That first visit is also where he gives his opinion on what the house needs: “Do you really need new gutters, do you just need a repair?” Sometimes the answer is a cleaning, or guards so the gutters don’t have to be cleaned out two or three times a year. There is no discount that vanishes if the customer doesn’t sign that day. “We just kind of let them decide,” he says. In its replies to customers, the company has written that it makes a point of personally inspecting its finished projects.
The crews work Jefferson and Shelby counties and try to stay within about an hour of Birmingham in any direction. Houses are what Sergio likes best. “It’s a very personal experience for us,” he says. Commercial jobs take longer. Drip edge and flashing come into play, along with TPO or other commercial roofing, and it matters whether a building has an inside gutter system or an exterior one. “That can be a little bit tricky,” he says, “but we don’t shy away from those.”
He tries to lead the crew by example, though every person is different, he says. Good workers are hard to find, and “when you do, I really feel like you have to cherish them and remind them how valuable they are and make them feel that way as well.”
The work goes out with a warranty, and he says the crews take their time to make sure it is something they can stand behind. “We honestly don’t get very many callbacks,” he says. “I’ve only had two or three callbacks in the past four years.”