Flowright Gutter and Roofing Family Values

Almost 5 years ago my husband Chris and I decided to settle our young family in beautiful Warburton and we haven’t looked back. As the owners of Flowright Gutter and Roofing, we’ve been fortunate enough to combine Chris’ trade qualifications and experience with my administration and marketing background to deliver a friendly, customer-focused service without stepping on each other’s toes or driving each other crazy. Chris has over twenty years of experience as a roof plumber and roof tiler. I was originally a practising primary school teacher who transitioned into marketing and administration in search of greater flexibility around family life. We now both work full time in our business as we juggle our four young children, aged nine and under. I am also a freelance writer and recently co-authored a book. However, my writing is taking a back seat at the moment, with the rapid growth of Flowright Gutter and Roofing.

Fortunately, we were largely unaffected by the recent extended Covid-19 lockdowns. As roofing is an essential service and often requires emergency repairs, the workload was overwhelmingly consistent. Chris was relieved to be able to continue to work, especially as he finds being sedentary extremely frustrating. Meanwhile, I managed to continue to run our business, while putting my teacher training into action by providing remote learning for our three young school-aged children. Our youngest, born in the second lockdown is luckily very fond of napping in the baby carrier and all too familiar with masked faces.

We feel extremely fortunate to be progressing from strength to strength and are heavily booked right through until June next year. One of the biggest benefits to running our own business is the incredible flexibility it allows us around our small family. Chris loves being able to drop the children at school before heading off to the day’s jobs. Whilst I can arrange my work around any school commitments and school pickups. One of our children is neurodivergent with Autism and heavily relies on the routine and flexibility we’re able to comfortably provide.

Our biggest challenge at present is that our business is growing quicker than we’re able to recruit staff. We desperately require three new employees: a roof plumber, an apprentice roof plumber and a general labourer. Until we fill these roles we’ll continue to struggle with the overwhelming workload. However, once we finally fill these roles, we’ll be truly off and running.

We’re proud to be operating in the picturesque Yarra Ranges, Yarra Valley and beyond. To this day we’re both amazed by the immense beauty of our surroundings, we love where we live and the lifestyle we’re able to provide our family. We’re very involved in the local community, largely in local sports like football, basketball and dancing. When we find more staff and Chris steps back from the tools slightly, he looks forward to being able to take on some volunteer coaching roles. In the meantime, we look forward to expanding our business throughout the next few years and getting to know even more locals in the process. We’re extremely excited for what the future holds for Flowright Gutter and Roofing.