Any Effective Gutter Guards

Nope

We tore the gutters off our house in Fl, I was up on the roof every week cleaning them out! Don't live under a live oak!
 
Our previous house had the plastic ones with holes which seemed to work well. The rain would flush the leaves off the top. Now I never took them off to inspect the inside, but dont see how much could have made its way in.
 
We don't even use gutters here in Maine. The winters are so cold and we get so much snow that the snow melts from the heated house and the ice that forms breaks them all to pieces in no time. I know of three places that have gutters and all of them are broken.

Building contractors here try to convince the "flats" or out of staters that gutters are a waste of money, but some still insist. Within 3 years the gutters are junk.

I know they work well in other parts of the country, but here they are not worth even putting up.
 
Guttertopper and Gutter Helmet as well as the higher end models seem to do the job. I have the plastic sections with the holes in them that do a good job at keeping leaves out of the gutters, but a poor job as keeping out the maple seeds.
 
if you`ve gotta have gutters the 6" half round metal units with 4" down spouts don`t clog as easily as the small extruded aluminum jobs.
i don`t use `em.
 
I had a product called Gutter-Loov installed a couple years ago, and it's working very well. It goes under your first course of shingles, and fits under the outer lip of 'standard' guttering. Cost me $7.50 per foot, installed (in 2005). So far, no clogs, and no leaves, twigs, 'helicopters' from the maples, or acorns from the oaks that are all around the house. I'm pretty happy with that!.

My neighbor liked the looks of mine so much that he had it installed on his house, too. Kinda funny, the first really hard rain we had after I'd had it installed, I looked out to see the neighbor standing in my yard, closely watching my roof to see how well the Gutter-Loov was working. He didn't really believe it'd work. Musta made him happy, though, since he got it, too.
 
I used that plastic screen like material that comes in a roll. Held in place by tension of the screen between the gutter and bottom of shingles. Worked great 1st year, then it started deforming and the following winter was the cause of an ice jam in the back above the kitchen. Can't say I'd recommend these. I took 'em all down and will just clean the gutters from time to time.
 
I went through this two years ago. the 90 year old gutters on my house were finally shot, and i could never get comfortable cleaning them out (24' above the ground) standing on my 36' ladder.
so, i upsized the gutters (the calculations said i neede 5", but i went with 6" - both for the safety factor and the thicker gage metal they make them out of) and, after a lot of research, went with Alcoa's "leaf relief". I basically couldn't justify the expense of gutter helmet (quadrupled the cost of the gutter replacement over gutters with no guard) because of it's proprietary nature. Also, i'm not convinced that their "never clog" warrantee is realistic or worth the paper it's written on. I assume the guard will make cleaning the gutters a once-in-a-great-while task instead of twice a year.
The leaf relief became my choice because
1) it comes in removable sections (for maintenance or repair - can't do that with systems that are formed integral with the gutter such as gutter helmet)
2) it strengthens the gutter by reinforcing its leading edge
3) the design is really a simple aluminum plate with numerous pinhole perforations that will block just about anything except the perfectly placed pine needle. the leaves can land on top and will blow away when they dry out.
4) cost - it wasn't the most expensive (by far) but wasn't the cheapest either (think plastic mesh strips). It cost nearly as much as the gutters themselves.
5) it installs on standard "K" profile gutters in it's typical sizes. Nothing proprietary required.

I've done some spot checking since it's been up - no problems. It looks like it's working quite well. My brother put this on his house as well - he lives in the woods. No problems after a year and a half.

Paul Hubbman
 
Englert Leaf Guard Gutters

Greetings All,

I had Englert Leaf Guard gutters put on my house 8 years ago. I have never had any clogs or problems in that time. They have a lifetime warranty and if they ever do clog, the company cleans them for free. The installation was very professional and well done. I first heard of them in Fine Homebuilding and in spite of the price, I have been extremely happy. My wife and I are building a new home and we'll definitely have them installed there, too.

By the way, we live in the midst of dozens of 80 - 100 year old oak, hickory and maple trees, so the leaf debris was a huge problem before I got these gutters. I tried other solutions previously; screens, caps, helmets, but nothing has performed as well and as long as these.

Good luck with your search!

Frank
 
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