Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Good
Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Regina Lee.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello everyone and
welcome to another episode of
the Good Neighbor Podcast.
I love talking to localbusiness owners and I'm super
excited today to talk to CarlRubidge.
He is owner of CLT Improvements.
Welcome, carl.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, thank you,
regina.
It's nice to meet you and we'revery glad to be invited and to
be part of this.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Absolutely.
I detect a little accent.
That's not a Charlotte accent.
Where are you from?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
My joke.
Sometimes I'll tell people I'mfrom Northeast Georgia and they
always just chuckle at me likeyeah, right, actually I'm
originally from South Africa, sofrom the far south, way down
south, and came to the UnitedStates about 25 years ago and
I've been here since.
I picked up some of the localsouthernisms and learned how to
(01:00):
say y'all and fixing to and soon.
So yeah, but originally SouthAfrica, british South African.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Well, speaking of
fixing to, I think that's kind
of the industry you're in.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Tell us about your
business.
Oh, the business.
Okay, clt Improvements is thebusiness and what we do is
exterior home improvement.
So we'll take care of theoutside of your house,
everything from the roof down tothe gutters and gutter guards,
to protecting the gutters fromdebris, and build up to your
fascia boards that the guttersattached to, all the way down
into the siding, the windows,the window trim, the doors,
(01:36):
basically almost anything on theexterior of the house.
That is what we handle.
We don't do a lot of stuccowork that we have to subcontract
because we are it's just not inour our wheelhouse, but
basically almost anything elsewe can handle on the exterior of
the home so how did you and whydid you get into this business?
okay, yeah, that's a.
That's an interesting story.
Um, well, as probably many ofyou all of us, almost all of us
(01:59):
remember, in 2008 there was alittle change in the economy and
prior to 2008, I was a realestate and I had specialized in
corporate relocation, where wewould help big companies move
staff from one area to anotherand I would help find homes for
the staff coming to Charlotte.
It was a great business upuntil 2008, because it was a
(02:21):
constant stream of people cominginto the Charlotte area, so we
stayed really, really busy doingthat.
However, in 2008, when a lot ofcompanies shut down their
funding or business shut downand changed a lot of their
funding due to the economicsituation, that, pretty much,
was going to dry up very quickly.
So I ended up moving into homeimprovement.
So I figured I'd stay in theindustry where I'm helping
(02:44):
people with homes, but gettinginto the repairs and renovations
side of it, and we started thatbusiness originally with Gutter
Glove, gutter Guards, so thatwas the actual starting point in
2011.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Gotcha.
So you own Gutter Guardfranchise here.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
It's not actually a
franchise.
I became a gutter glove dealerbecause the company I worked for
very briefly after being a realestate agent.
They had a product which wasgutter glove gutter guards, and
I loved this product.
I thought it was fantastic.
I actually bought some from thecompany and tested them on my
own home, which had trees allthe way around the house, and so
it was a great testing ground.
So I tested out a bunch ofdifferent guards over a few.
(03:26):
It was a good few months beforeI actually got to decided that
gutter glove was the best gutterguard system out there and from
there actually just decided togo ahead and start the business
and rolled right into startingthe business and found some
crews that we had worked with inthe previous company that shut
down and the guys were alllooking for work.
So we just we just basicallygot started with the same group
that we were together before,just under a different name, and
(03:48):
love doing what we've beendoing and we're we're all
together still the same crewsfrom back in 2011.
We're still working togetherand loving it.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Wow, that's super,
super cool.
There is so much newconstruction, but when you're
line of work, so many people areredoing their homes.
What are you seeing as some ofthe biggest trends here in?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Charlotte.
Let's say, for example,someone's got a house, they
don't have a huge budget, butthey want to make the house look
pretty different and they needa gutter system.
So something we can go in to dois to remove an older gutter
(04:35):
system, which may be a whitecolor, and then replace it with
a dark bronze or with black, andit gives the house a very
different look.
Then something that they can doto add to that is to go ahead
and paint the shutters the samecolor as the gutters and the
front door, just to give it someaccents, and you can look at
that, pull up to the house andit looks like a different house.
Sometimes we'll also do a roofto give them a color change if
they need a roof or the roof isgetting old or perhaps needed it
was from an insurance claim andwe'll put together this package
(04:55):
of a new roof with a colorchange on the roof, color change
on the gutters and then someother little accents, and can
get a very different lookinghouse out of it.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Can you paint your
existing gutters if you want
that black or dark brown look.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yes, you can paint
them.
However, the gutters come witha factory finish that is very
easy to clean and easy todegrease, whereas if you now go
and paint with an acrylic paint,you've got a surface that's not
that smooth, easy to clean,easy to degrease type of surface
and the cost of painting allthe gutters comes fairly close
to the cost of replacing thegutter system.
(05:32):
So most times people just wantto go ahead and just do the
actual replacement of the guttersystem and then they've got a
warranty with it for five yearsin the workmanship and 50 years
on the materials of the gutters.
So most times people just say,look, let's just do the new
gutter system.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Gotcha Well, walk us
through your process if somebody
is listening, and they needgutters and exterior work.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Okay, the first thing
to do would be for them to
reach out to us in some manner.
They could either call us onthe phone number on the website
or they could fill out the formon the website and we'll receive
the information and then one ofus will reach out and get in
touch and set an appointment ata convenient time for whoever it
is to come out.
Get some measurements.
(06:18):
Come out, get some measurements.
Sometimes we can price theproject right there on the spot,
if it doesn't involve somethingwhere we've got to go and get
other pricing, like maybe somesiding or an unusual gutter
color or gutter material.
So very often we can price itout there immediately.
And once the customer sees thedollar amount and they accept
the offer on it, then the nextstep is to get our office
(06:41):
manager to send out a work order.
We'll get them scheduled with adate that's good for them,
schedule the installation.
Then, on the day of theinstallation, what we do is the
crew will arrive whatever timethat this office manager sets up
the arrival time to arrive.
We'll go through the basics ofthe project and then handle a
(07:02):
project it may.
If it's a, for example, agutter changing out, we're
changing to an input guttersystem.
It can be done in sometimeshalf a day or one day, and the
home we don't always requirehomeowners to be home, to be
present, but at least is givingus this, their contact number,
so that they can still stay atwork and if we we need something
, we can call them or video callthem to handle whatever needs
(07:23):
to be handled.
We try and make it as easy aspossible or as painless as
possible, because that waypeople don't have to take a day
off work to have their guttersdone, whereas some companies
actually require them to be homethe whole time.
Well, you're in a competitivebusiness.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I'm interested and
your reviews are amazing, so
you're doing a lot of thingsright.
So I'm wondering how do youapproach building a quote when
it's you've got to have thequality, but yet someone's on a
budget?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Well, there's various
ways of doing that.
The first thing you do isnumber one is have options
available.
So that I'll give you anexample I worked with someone
just last week who's on a really, really tight budget and wants
to replace his gutter system andthen wants to do gutter guards,
but the cost was a little bitmore than he could afford.
So what we ended up doing waswe actually, because his
(08:18):
downspouts from the old guttersystem were in acceptable shape,
we left his downspouts on andactually just replaced the
actual gutters and theninstalled the gutter guards.
So by doing it that way, weactually find ways to where
someone can save money but yetnot compromise the quality of
the job.
Then we also have differenttiers, for example, the gutter
(08:39):
guards.
We've got three differentlevels of the gutter guard, all
of which are really good quality, but then more heavily
reinforced guards for the heavyduty applications where you've
got trees right over a house,where you need a heavier,
sturdier frame than somethingthat has trees close to the
house, but you're not going tohave tree limbs falling onto the
roof and then potentiallydamaging the gutter.
(09:00):
You're not going to have treelimbs falling onto the roof and
then potentially damaging thegutter.
So we've got different tieredlevels and different ways to
work it out, but the mostimportant thing is to never
compromise the quality.
Well, that's a good point.
What sets you guys apart?
Share with us.
I'd say what sets us apart froma lot of other gutter companies
is we do roofing as well.
(09:20):
We do siding and windows.
So we could come in and actuallyinstall a gutter system and
then, even if we did not installa roof, we won't affect the
roofer's warranty because weknow how to handle the roofing.
We know how to treat the roofingso that when installing a
gutter guard system that slidesunder the first row of shingles,
we know exactly how to do it insuch a way as not to damage it.
And in some cases, wheresomeone's just had a new roof
(09:43):
installed that we didn't install, we will actually go contact
the other roofing company andjust let them know hey, we're
going to install a gutter guardsystem here.
We know what we're doing.
Can you just sign off as that?
It's okay for us to install asystem in this method, that we
install it, and very often theother roofing companies are fine
with it.
They they'll still carry thewarranty, even with our gutter
guards installed because that,because it's a common issue that
(10:06):
homeowners get nervous aboutinstalling a gutter guard system
because the other roofingcompany wouldn't actually
wouldn't validate the warrantyany longer, because it's been
altered or the gutter guardsystem slides between the
starter and the actual shingle.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Wow, are there any
misconceptions in your industry
that you hear over and over?
Yes, yes, with gutter guardsthere are a lot of
misconceptions, because thereare so many.
There's a major misconceptionthat gutter guards just don't
work, period, but it's.
It's based on a fair amount oftruth there, because of the few
hundred gutter guard systemsthat are out there, there's
(10:48):
probably only five percent thatare truly effective.
So on average, people areprobably right with that.
But if you do a bit of research, you can find that there are
some systems that are reallyeffective and that function best
, that that require the most, byfar the least amount of
maintenance and by far the mosteffective for that small amount
of maintenance.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I had no idea.
That is good information.
Well, again, you have justamazing reviews and
congratulations on your work.
So when you're not running thisfabulous company, what do you
like to do for fun?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Oh, the hobbies.
Oh, yes, we have to get intothat.
So there's two major thingsthat I spend a lot of time doing
, but one of them, which isbarefoot water skiing or water
skiing in general, which is whatactually brought me to the
United States originally, when Ifirst came over, it was all
about water skiing, and then Iended up falling in love with
the country and staying andalways water skiing on the
(11:45):
weekends, when I can or when Ihave some free time.
And the other one is adventuremotorcycling, where we take a
motorcycle and go exploring themountains.
Western North Carolina has gotsome really beautiful mountains,
and so going out exploring is alot of fun.
And then we have a lot ofcustomers that actually come and
join us, people that we've donework for that I'll invite them
(12:07):
out and we'll go and do a jointride where a bunch of us will go
ride together, so we can have alot of fun like that.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Well, that's a good
testimony.
Right there, you're a good guytoo.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, so tell our
listeners how they find CLT
Improvements.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
The simplest way is
to just go to a Google page,
just type into cltimprovements.
com or just CLT Improvements,and that'll be the easiest way
to find us.
Or you could find us onFacebook, Twitter, Instagram,
LinkedIn.
We're all over the social mediaas well.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Well, I love that.
Carl, it's been a pleasuregetting to know you and
congratulations on your success.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, thank you very
much.
It's been great to get to knowyou too, Regina.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Thank you for
listening to the Good Neighbor
Podcast.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses to be featured on
the show, go toGNPSouthCharlotte.
com.
That's GNPSouthCharlotte.
com, or call 980-351-5719.