WHO:

Mr. Daniel Shay, President
Wheeling Distribution Center
2901 Eoff Street
Wheeling WV  26003

AND

Alcoa Home Interiors, Inc
2600 Campbell Road
Sidney, Ohio 45365

WHAT

Make sure you inquire about “tiger striping " before you have seamless gutters installed on your home!!
*********>>>>See January 2008 Update Below!

Both Alcoa and Wheeling Distribution declined to do anything to address the problem after my widowed mother paid to enhance the beauty of her home with these gutters and these lovely "tiger stripes" appeared. 

<>This "tiger striping" goes all the way around the house, the full length of the gutters.  Alcoa dismissed her concerns, responding that the problem was beyond their control and excluded from the terms of the warranty provided by Wheeling Distribution Center.  Trouble is, Wheeling Distribution failed to provide my mom with any written warranty.  Alcoa sent her a product and told her to try cleaning the gutters herself.  She’s a 71-year-old widow who recently had total knee replacement surgery and there’s no way she could get up on a ladder and clean these gutters – nor should she have to!  

Ironically it was the aesthetic value of the seamless gutters that appealed to my mother and motivated her to replace her old gutters in the first place -gutters, which by the way, had never in the 20+ years they'd been on the house experienced “tiger striping”.   Clearly she would have been better off leaving the old gutters up.

If you are contemplating new gutters, make sure you inquire about this issue.  There is apparently something called a Drip Guard that can be installed to prevent the problem.  None of the salesmen mentioned this issue (at least BEFORE the gutters were installed) nor did they even give her the option of having these guards applied.   Perhaps you won't make the same mistake she did.

UPDATE: 1/2008 – After a complaint filed with the West Virginia Attorney General’s could not resolve the dispute, mom filed a suit in Ohio County WV small claims court. At trial the judge said he wanted to hold off issuing a judgment since Shay said he'd consider a resolution of the dispute before the judge rendered a judgment. The judge asked him and his laywer to contact mom within 30 days. After hearing not a peep from either Shay or his lawyer after 45 days, the judge awarded in mom’s favor in late 2007 in the amount of $700.00. Shay then filed a motion in December 2007 asking that the judgment be set aside, in part because he said the award was “excessive”. A hearing on whether to set aside the judgment was held before the judge on 1/14/08 and the judge DENIED Shay’s motion, saying he was “flummoxed” by the whole thing! Shay has indicated through his attorney that he will appeal this small claims decision to West Virginia Circuit Court.