Need Gutter Critter Feedback and help

Tony Shelton

BS Detector, Esquire
Ken Beckstead, the owner and inventor of the Gutter Critter has sold the rights to it to us.

My daughter, Fayth, is going to own and operate this business. She already has the skill set to produce this product and we will help her in regards to the operational aspect until she learns how to do it herself. This is a natural extension of her homeschooling. She has been balancing our checkbooks with Shelly since she was 7 yrs old and for the past two years she has operated the cleaning portion of our interior air filter service. She cleans them, inventories them, and readies them for install. She does this on her own schedule and has shown that she has the responsibility to manufacture the Gutter Critter and any variations of it.

Gutter Critter is already a UAMCC member and Fayth will be taking over that membership as part of the purchase and will be marketing the product at events.

For the record the business proceeds will be owned entirely by Fayth with the exception of a ten percent fee we will charge her each month for financial management, site rental, and insurance management. If she is successful she will use the proceeds to expand the business and invest in future interests as they come along.

She plans on selling the Gutter Critter, as configured now, to homeowners as it was originally intended.

But, her main goal is to get it out to powerwashers in a configuration that would be more user friendly than the current fish shape.

This product will have a different name, and possibly a different makeup of parts to make it more targeted towards the needs of power washers. The current configuration removes all oils, grease, heavy metals and bacteria.

What we need from you guys who have used the gutter critter thus far is to give us some ideas of what size and shape you think would be more user friendly. For example, for our rooftop work we might make one that is shaped like a large donut to fit around roof drains on commercial building so that we we don't have to worry about gaps where the ends meet and it would be easy to sling it over a shoulder to take to the roof.

Any ideas? And can any of you guys tell of your experience with Gutter Critter so far? How long have they lasted? The indication that they are saturated is when water begins to pool in front of them without going through.
 
The video here shows the gutter critter in its early stage for home use. It is shaped like a fish for marketing. It was mostly for oil and car wash runoff initially

The new internals also include filtration of heavy metals and bacteria and cost more than the $19.95.

The target price for booms will be between $30 and $50 depending on size. It's the internals that cost so much. We won't know for sure till we start making them.

This is a passion for Ken. He has a cigarette butt receptacle that goes in public spaces where his team goes around and retrieves the butts on a regular route, runs them through a cleaning process to remove chemicals, and heats them to melting and makes products with them.

The heat generated makes electricity that is fed back to the grid and he provides a monthly report to the cities he works with showing them how many kw were generated back by recycling the butts.

He will be speaking at the Tri-state Seminar again this year and has been moved up from a 50-100 person room to a 300+ person room for his presentation because they like his product so much.

 
For you guys who are already using them we are finding out more information all the time.

For example:

If you label the top side with a 1 and a 2 (one at the spine of the fish and a two at his belly, you can use it with side one facing the incoming water till you think it is slowing flow.

Then switch it around for the next jobs so the 2 is facing flow.

when you think flow is slowing on that side, turn the fish over and label a 3 and a 4 on it and do the same thing.

If you think the boom (fish) has outlived it's life, for the official test to check (as specified in the EPA registration for the one with bacterial filtration) is to wet it, then put it on top of a grid of some sort on top of a 5 gallon bucket, and pour five gallons of water through it. If it takes less than 30 seconds for almost all the water to make it through without trying to flow around it, then the media is still good to use and still working properly.

I'll have to check with them and make sure there isn't a variation on this test since the media is covered with the skin. This test is for bare media.
 
We expect to be manufacturing these within 2 weeks. She has to get her business license and manufacturer insurance in place. Ken will be working with us this weekend and we will find out size and configuration limitations.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk
 
That is great Tony and Fayth, Congratulations!

The popular shapes and sizes we used at the refinery were 16" x 16" pads and then the socks that were 4' long, 6' long and then 10' long of the 2", 4", 6" and 10" diameter.

These were the media inside of fishnet tubes and on the end of the tubes were nylon strings and carabiners so you can tie them together to make long booms for out in the bay for chemical spills. With the fishnet tubes, you can just fill them and then secure the end with sewing or heat cutters/sealers like they do with regular shrinkwrap packaging. When you do this, it cuts the tube and seals it at the same time.

I am very happy for you guys Tony, that is really cool!
 
Hmm, maybe custom sizes? I am thinking they could replace the filters in my recovery system and make it more efficient.
 
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