My head's in the gutter.

August 12, 2008 5:55 AM

Autumn is around the corner, and my thoughts turn to falling leaves--and the grimy, dangerous task of cleaning gutters. My gutter-installer is recommending a commercial gutter guard that will make gutter cleaning obsolete. What's your take on his suggestion?

The gutter guard, a metal cap with a mesh filter, is said to protect against all but the finest grains of dirt. Leaves accumulate on the surface, and are mostly dispersed by the wind.

My overriding concerns are:
1) Will the fine grit that gradually washes off the asphalt shingles eventually plug up the holes in the mesh?
2) How will the guard impact ice dams in the winter? My instinct suggests that it will work as an ice dam buffer, preventing snow buildup in the trough of the gutter. But it could have a reverse effect.

What's your take, Mefites, on these questions?

Has anybody installed this product, or, for that matter, a comparable gutter guard that you can recommend?

posted by Gordion Knott to home & garden (7 comments total)

We have a wide mesh snap-on cover. Works to keep the big junk out but maple seeds end up stuck in it.

I'd guess that the ones you linked to should eliminate the shingle grit (= the "sand" the site mentions) issue. As for ice dams, who knows. These guards generally snap in place, so any ice underneath the guard should just push the gutter guard back off of the gutter.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:21 AM on August 12, 2008

Our condo's gutters just got replaced.
They lined them with black, and I'm assuming open-cell styrofoam.
Water can get in but not much else.
posted by whoda at 6:33 AM on August 12, 2008

We had our standard gutters replaced with leafguard gutters (I think. It's the one with the little squirrel in the logo). They've held up well, divert rain properly, and aren't accumulating muck (we know, because we were able to examine them when we recently had work done on the house and they were removed briefly).

It is probably more expensive than installing a separate gutter guard, but they are all one piece and therefore may be more durable.
posted by MsElaineous at 6:58 AM on August 12, 2008

If this comes out as too self-linkey please delete this, mods, but I work for a gutter supply company, so I figured this was right up our alley, and I showed the question to one of our sales guys. Here's his response:


1) Will the fine grit that gradually washes off the asphalt shingles eventually plug up the holes in the mesh?

1. That shouldn't be an issue, because it should dry up, and blow off.

2) How will the guard impact ice dams in the winter? My instinct suggests that it will work as an ice dam buffer, preventing snow buildup in the trough of the gutter. But it could have a reverse effect.

2. That is a good question, but you will just have a little more dripping, when it thaws out, because it will build on top of the gutters. But you should not have any other side affects, and dripping won't cause damage to your foundation, which is always the main concern.

Also the only problems, that I see with this product, or questions to ask would be 1. will the screen last more than a year or so, because of the abuse that these screens take, because if you get a hole in this mesh, material will get hung up. and
2. I don't like how it feeds under the front lip, making an area where debris can get caught in, which does happen a lot, that's why most screens for over the front lip.

I'd look at our Gutter Solutions product, it goes over the front lip, and doesn't have mesh, so it won't have those issues, and probably is much more economical, and easier to install, because it just needs a screw on top, and 2 screws in the fascia. Also the best product, I've seen on the market is Gutter Fill, which goes inside of the gutter, and goes to the top, and has a Biocide, in the material which is very important, because it drys out the debris, and allows wind to blow it off easier. Also they also have UV, and Fungicidal/Bactercidal additives, which inhibits the growth of fungis, mildew, birds, insects, and mosquitos, which usually are a big problem with gutter, and this is one the few gutter protection products, that have a warranty. Please contact us with questions, or concerns, have a great day.
posted by Reverend John at 7:05 AM on August 12, 2008

Gordion, you don't say where you live, but here's my take.

We moved into a house in north-central Connecticut in 1992 that had gutter guards -- a black wire mesh nailed to the roof so it covered over the gutters. It also had dam-breaks higher up.

The problem that we had, which eventually caused us to remove the gutter guards and dam breaks, wasn't so much with ice or snow ... although I'll get to that in a minute. It's that most of the leaves that fell onto our roof fell while it was raining... which meant that where leaves would normally dry up and fly away if the accumulation was minor, during any decent fall rainstorm they'd build up on top of the gutter guard so fast that it was if we didn't have gutters at all. The damage to our cars and landscaping was so significant that we took the mesh off the first chance we had the next spring.

As far as the dam-breaks higher up on the roof, we ran into a major problem with them during the Blizzard of '96 -- mainly that we had four feet of melting snow on our roof and the house was about to collapse, but we had one hell of a time with the roof rake because of those damned metal mushrooms.

When we re-did the roof, we tore all of the modern conveniences out and just decided to put up with climbing the ladder and cleaning the gutters out once every few weeks.
posted by SpecialK at 10:31 AM on August 12, 2008

Site note: You might want to check out iRobot (the company that makes Roomba)'s line of gutter cleaning robots: the Looj.
posted by suedehead at 11:06 AM on August 12, 2008

*side* note...
posted by suedehead at 11:06 AM on August 12, 2008