Warranties & disputes · Queensland

Gutter guard warranties in Queensland, and exactly what to do when it fails.

Three protections sit over your gutter guard and they do not expire together. The product warranty comes from the mesh maker, typically 10 to 25 years. The workmanship warranty comes from the installer, 10 years with us. Underneath both sit the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law, which nobody can contract out of. In Queensland, QBCC licensing generally applies to building work above $3,300, and QBCC can direct a licensee to rectify defective work reaching back around 6 years and 6 months from completion.

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Most homeowners find out how their warranty works at the worst possible moment, standing in the laundry watching water come through the ceiling. This page is the version to read first. It is general information about how the Queensland framework works, not legal advice on your specific dispute.

Who covers what, and for how long

What went wrong	Who covers it	Typical term	What you have to produce
Mesh corrodes, powder coating blisters, plastic goes brittle	Product warranty from the manufacturer, usually claimed through your installer	10 to 25 years depending on the material	Original invoice, the product name on the quote, dated photos
Mesh lifts, screws back out, wrong fixings used	Installer workmanship warranty	10 years with us. Across the trade it runs from 1 year to 10.	Invoice, install date, photos of the failure
Gutter still overflows because aperture or fall is wrong	Installer, plus the consumer guarantee that a service is fit for its stated purpose	Workmanship term, and no fixed expiry under the ACL	A short phone video of it overflowing during rain, plus the quote
Gutter rusts under a guard fitted without clearing it first	Installer workmanship warranty	Workmanship term	Absence of before and after photos is itself evidence
Tiles cracked or a downpipe crushed during the install	The installer public liability insurance	Report it the same day, do not wait	Same day photos and a written notice by email
Cyclone or storm tears the guard and gutter off	Your home insurer, not a warranty	Per your policy, notify promptly	Dated maintenance records and event photos
Leaf mat sitting on top of the mesh, needs a blow down	Nobody. That is maintenance, not a defect.	Expect it once a year here	Nothing. Book a clean.
Goods or service simply not of acceptable quality	Australian Consumer Law consumer guarantees, on top of any warranty	No fixed expiry. Judged against price and what you were told.	Quote, invoice, any written claims made in the sales pitch

A written warranty adds to your consumer guarantees. It never replaces them, and a clause saying otherwise does not work.

If it goes wrong: the escalation ladder, in order

Work down this list. Skipping straight to the bottom rung usually sends you back up it.

Step	Timeframe	What you do
1. Photograph and date it	Same day	Wide shot and close-up of every affected run. If it overflows, film 20 seconds of it during rain. Photos with a date beat descriptions every time.
2. Written defect notice to the installer	Within days of noticing	Email, not a phone call, so it is timestamped. Six elements, listed further down this page.
3. Inspection	5 to 10 business days is reasonable	Be there. Ask them to say on the spot whether they accept it as a warranty item, and get that in writing after.
4. Written rectification plan	Agree a date within about 20 business days	What will be done, by when, at whose cost. A verbal promise to come back is not a plan.
5. Formal letter with a deadline	Give 14 days	If nothing has happened, send a short letter referring to the workmanship warranty and to your consumer guarantees, and say what you will do next.
6. QBCC complaint	Within 12 months of becoming aware	Lodge a defective building work complaint. QBCC can inspect and direct the licensee to rectify, generally reaching back 6 years and 6 months from completion, with shorter windows for non structural work.
7. Office of Fair Trading Queensland	Any time, runs in parallel	The right door for a consumer guarantee complaint about goods and services rather than licensed building work.
8. QCAT	Last, and only after the steps above	The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal hears minor civil disputes up to $25,000 and building disputes in its building jurisdiction, normally after the QBCC process has been used.
9. Insurance, if water got inside	Notify promptly	Run the insurance claim alongside, not instead of, the warranty claim. See gutter guard and insurance claims.

Want a quote that spells the warranty out before you sign?

Every quote we issue names the mesh, the fixings, the metres, the product warranty term and the 10-year workmanship warranty. Free measure, fixed price within 2 business days.

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The Queensland framework, named

Licensing and the dollar threshold

Building work in Queensland is regulated by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission. A licence is generally required for building work valued above $3,300 including materials and labour. That threshold matters here because a whole-house gutter guard job starts around $2,100 and commonly runs past $3,000, and a full gutter replacement at $3,000 to $5,500 is over it every time. Ask for the licence number, then check it yourself on the QBCC online register. It takes a minute and it tells you whether the licence is current, what class it covers, and whether there is anything on the record.

The Queensland Home Warranty Scheme

Queensland also runs a statutory home warranty insurance scheme covering insurable residential construction work above the same $3,300 figure, with the premium paid by the contractor before work starts. Whether a particular job falls inside the insurable class depends on what is actually being done: replacing gutters as part of roof work is treated differently from clipping a mesh over an existing gutter. Rather than guess, ask the contractor to state on the quote whether the scheme applies to your job and, if it does, to give you the notice of cover. If they cannot answer that, that is information too.

Your consumer guarantees

Separate from all of the above, the Australian Consumer Law gives you guarantees that cannot be signed away: services must be supplied with due care and skill and be fit for the purpose you made known, and goods must be of acceptable quality and match their description. There is no fixed expiry on these. What counts as reasonable is judged against the price you paid and the claims that were made to you, which is precisely why a 25-year product claim in a sales pitch is worth writing down at the time.

The paperwork to keep, and what a defect notice should say

Put all of this in one folder, physical or digital, the day the job finishes. Photos on your phone are fine as long as you can find them in three years.

The written quote, including the mesh type, aperture, fixing material and the number of lineal metres.
The tax invoice showing an ABN, and the licence number of whoever did the work.
The product warranty certificate or datasheet, with the term and the conditions on it.
The workmanship warranty document, with a clear start date.
Before and after photos of every gutter run. We supply these on every job, precisely so the file exists before anyone needs it.
Every email or text about a variation, including your approval of it.
Dated invoices for each later clean or blow-down. This is the record that answers a maintenance argument.

A defect notice needs six things and nothing else: the property address, the install date and invoice number, a plain description of what is wrong, the date you first noticed it, dated photos attached, and what you want done with a reasonable deadline such as 14 days to inspect. Send it by email. Keep it factual, because that email is what QBCC or a tribunal reads later, and a calm one-page notice is far more effective than an angry three-page one.

Defect or fair wear: where the line actually sits

This is where most arguments live, so here is the honest version from our side of the ladder.

Defect. Fixings backing out in the first couple of years. Powder coating blistering at year 3. Mesh lifting in ordinary weather. Water sheeting over the gutter face on a mesh sold as suitable for tropical rain. A gutter rusting from the inside because litter was sealed under new mesh. Mesh laid flat over tiles so water tracks back under the first course.
Fair wear. Colour fade after 12 to 15 years of tropical UV. A mat of leaf sitting on top of the mesh that needs blowing off once a year. Surface marking. A branch coming through in a blow. Cyclone damage. Damage caused by another trade walking on the mesh to reach an air conditioner.
The test. Did it fail early relative to what was promised and what the product was sold as suitable for? A 20-year mesh that fails at year 4 is a defect. The same mesh needing a blow-down every wet season is exactly what it was sold as. Our page on how long gutter guard lasts here sets out the realistic service life by material.

The uncomfortable truth is that most disputes we hear about were not really warranty problems. They were scope problems. The customer thought the price included clearing the gutters, or the valleys, or the shed, and the quote never said either way. A quote that states the mesh, the aperture, the fixing material, the exact runs included and what is excluded prevents nearly all of them. That is the whole reason our quotes are itemised, and it is worth insisting on regardless of who you use.

What our warranty does not cover

An honest exclusion list is more useful than a long one, so here is ours.

Cyclone, hail and storm damage. That is what home insurance is for, and Mackay sits in the cyclonic wind region.
Mesh damaged by someone walking on it, or by a falling branch.
Overflow caused by a litter mat nobody has blown off in five years. One blow-down a year is the deal, and it is the same deal on every mesh sold in this country.
Guard fitted over a gutter we recommended in writing be replaced, where the owner chose to keep it.
Products we did not install, and products we will not install at all: foam inserts, brush inserts and poly guard on a sun-facing roof.
Work done to the roof afterwards by another trade, including solar installers and antenna fitters.

What it does cover is straightforward: for 10 years, if the mesh we fitted lifts, the fixings fail, or a run overflows because of how we installed it, we come back and fix it at no cost. If it is a product fault rather than a fixing fault, we handle the manufacturer claim on your behalf rather than handing you a phone number.

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Get a quote with the warranty written into it

Send your suburb and we will measure on site, then send a fixed price that names the product warranty term, the workmanship warranty and the exclusions, within 2 business days.

Warranty questions we get asked

What warranty should gutter guard come with in Queensland?

Two written documents, not one. A product warranty from the mesh manufacturer, which runs 10 to 25 years depending on the material, and a workmanship warranty from the installer, which is 10 years with us and anywhere from 1 to 10 years across the trade. Underneath both sit the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law, which apply whether or not anyone hands you a certificate.

Does a Mackay gutter guard installer need a QBCC licence?

In Queensland a licence is generally required to carry out building work valued above $3,300 including materials and labour, and that threshold catches most whole house gutter guard jobs, which start around $2,100 and commonly run past $3,000. Ask for the licence number and check it on the QBCC online register before you pay a deposit. It takes about a minute and it is the single most useful check on this page.

How long do I have to complain about defective gutter work?

Act quickly, because the clock matters. QBCC generally expects a complaint about defective building work to be lodged within 12 months of you becoming aware of the defect, and its power to direct a licensee to rectify generally reaches back 6 years and 6 months from completion, with shorter windows for non structural items. The consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law have no fixed expiry, but what is reasonable is judged against the price and what you were told.

What is the difference between a defect and fair wear?

A defect is a failure the product or the installation should not have had. Screws backing out at year 2, coating blistering at year 3, or a gutter rusting because litter was sealed under new mesh are all defects. Fair wear is colour fade after 12 to 15 years of tropical UV, a leaf mat sitting on top of the mesh that needs a blow down once a year, or a branch coming through in a blow. The test is whether it failed early relative to what was promised.

What should a written defect notice say?

Six things: the property address, the install date and invoice number, a plain description of what is wrong, the date you first noticed it, dated photos attached, and what you want done with a reasonable deadline such as 14 days to inspect. Send it by email so it is timestamped. Keep it factual and unemotional, because that same email is what QBCC or a tribunal will read later.

Is storm or cyclone damage a warranty claim?

No, that is an insurance question, not a warranty one. Mackay sits in the cyclonic wind region and no installer warrants a roof product against a cyclone. What a workmanship warranty does cover is a guard that lifts in ordinary weather because it was clipped rather than screwed at the correct centres. Keep your dated maintenance records either way, because they are what stop an insurer arguing the damage was a maintenance failure.

Get it done once, with the warranty in writing

Free on-site measure across Mackay and the Pioneer Valley. Itemised quote, named product, 10-year workmanship warranty.

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