Alu-Rex Installer Profile: Gouttières Boréal

Aug 24 / Noah Lantz
With a stocky build and an unassuming demeanor, Pier-Luc is the kind of guy you'd expect to see quietly sipping coffee at your local shop, not building a young million-dollar gutter company. But talk to him for a few minutes, and you'll quickly realize Pier-Luc is anything but ordinary. Gouttières Boréal, a company he started with his business partner Samuel Dubé last year, has taken the gutter industry in Quebec by storm. Their company is on track to achieve over a million dollars in sales in just its second year.

How does a humble guy turn a startup into a thriving company in such a short time? Pier-Luc’s secret weapon is a blend of tenacity, savvy business sense, and a partnership with Alu-Rex that supercharges the company’s marketing and allows him to focus on the parts of their business he knows best—installation and managing a gutter crew.

In this month’s Alu-Rex company profile (sponsored by Alu-Rex), we’ll dive into Pier-Luc and Samuel’s background and learn how they turned their wealth of experience working as gutter installers into a profitable enterprise of their own.
Pier-Luc grew up learning the ropes (and ladders) of installing gutters. “I started working at my father’s gutter company when I was fifteen years old,” Pier-Luc recalls. “That’s how I was introduced to the business. I started off in our shop by making elbows and downspouts. Later, I helped our installers load the trucks and get ready for the day. After that, I started working on the truck. I did that for about twelve years. When things got slow, I would move over into siding, but when gutters came back in season, I would get right back on the ladder.”

The family gutter company is also where Pier-Luc met Samuel. Samuel completed his carpenter-joiner course in 2009, but with the construction industry facing difficulties at the time due to the recession, he decided to work at Pier-Luc’s family gutter business. After a few years there, Samuel returned to the general construction industry. 

Pier-Luc continued to work at the family gutter business for over ten years. Eventually, the decision was made to sell. Pier-Luc originally looked into purchasing his father’s company, but quickly realized that this sale presented an opportunity to build something of his own. After talking to Samuel, they made the decision to start their own company.

“We could have bought my family’s business,” Pier-Luc recalled, “but we realized that there would be a lot involved. There would be a large upfront investment, obviously, but there would also be the running costs of keeping the company going. That, and the company’s long-term vision didn’t match our own. So we decided it would be better to build from the ground up. There would be some risk involved with that too, but with Samuel involved, I was convinced we could make it work.”

So in 2023 Pier-Luc and Samuel started their new company, Gouttières Boréal.

For a team with a background in installations, starting a business presents a host of challenges—not all of which they’re ready to tackle. Marketing, in particular, represented a unique challenge for Pier-Luc and Samuel—they’d never built a website, ran an advertising campaign, or created a brand of their own. Thankfully, they were able to find a solution with Alu-Rex. Their robust marketing support allowed them to focus on installations while offloading marketing to their team. Alu-Rex designed their logo, business cards, order pads, website, lawn signs and even wrapped their company truck. And when it came to running advertisements, Alu-Rex stepped in there too.

“Alu-Rex does all our Google ads. They set them all up for us and even manage them on a daily basis. We had no experience with those.” This made a huge difference for their company. “We’re a small business,” Pier-Luc notes, “but we can still compete with the larger companies in the area because we have professionals doing our marketing. We don’t have to think about that stuff. We can just install gutters. Alu-Rex drives all our leads. Working with them was a natural fit.”

Alu-Rex products also help differentiate Pier-Luc and Samuel from their competitors. Instead of using spaced hangers every 18-24 inches, they use Alu-Rex’s continuous hangers on nearly every job. Why? Winters demand a tougher, higher quality solution. Unlike gutters installed with spaced hangers, which are left open and exposed to the elements, gutters equipped with continuous hangers are solid and protected from leaves, debris, snow, and ice. 

As Pier-Luc asserts “We don't want to hang gutters with spaced hangers. …eventually gutters with spaced hangers get damaged. We want to install the right product for our customers’ houses, and we want to match the customer’s needs with the right product. We don’t want to sell problems; we want to sell solutions. For that reason, we only sell Alu-Rex products.”

Alu-Rex’s new technology, Hover, has been a hit with Gouttières Boréal’s customers. Unlike other products that require installers to screw brackets through the gutter to attach them to buildings, Hover instead works by screwing continuous hangers into the fascia. The gutter then “snaps” into this hanger. The result? The gutter can be hung without putting holes in it. More importantly, this allows the gutter to freely expand and contract with the season.

“People know how much temperature affects the expansion of gutters.” Pier-Luc says. “So when you have longer gutters, architects and homeowners are going to go for a floating gutter system because they understand how gutters expand and contract with the season. It’s easy to explain and makes perfect sense for homeowners”

Pier-Luc also notes that this selling point made a huge difference in locking down their biggest sale to-date: a large apartment complex with extremely long runs of gutter. “We did six buildings in that complex, and we did all of them with Hover. We nailed that sale—I think it was something like fifty or sixty thousand dollars. We knocked it out in one week.”

For Pier-Luc, the product itself is only one aspect of what makes Alu-Rex a great fit in their market. The other part? The guarantee behind the product. Alu-Rex’s lifetime sturdiness warranty provides a worry free investment for Pier-Luc’s customers. It protects against clogs, warping, and even ice damage—a huge selling point.

Pier-Luc’s background in installations and his experience with Alu-Rex leads him to offer the following piece of advice to other gutter contractors looking to expand their business. “In the gutter business, all you want to do is improve the home of your customer and make their life easier. That’s what motivates me. But, you need to make sure you have the right people around you first. Be ready for growth. It's a lot of work. Have both feet on the ground so you’re ready for whatever comes your way.”

For Samuel, the fact that the two owners personally install 100% of their jobs ensures that their quality standards remain top-notch. The company's growth remains a goal, but never at the expense of losing the reputation they have established in the greater Quebec City area. They plan to grow their business with employees who also value customer service and quality.
Along with offering great products, Alu-Rex’s 4-step marketing program provides a full suite of marketing support for gutter contractors, including Google Analytics, social media posts, billboards, television ads, and more.

Ready to learn more? Contact marketing@alu-rex.com or call at (855) 525-8739 to speak with a representative. Scan the QR code to learn more about Alu-Rex solutions.
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