…or leaf filters, or gutter covers, or whatever you call 'em: those mesh screens that are installed over a house’s gutters to keep leaves out so that, supposedly, you don’t have to go up and clean out your gutters.
(And no, Discourse, they aren’t similar to cattle guards, or the Coast Guard.)
Anyone have any experience with them? Do they work? Are they worth it?
I installed a very basic set at my first house. They worked OK but not great.
We had excellent ones at the second house, no problems for 20 years and only had to do one light cleaning in that span.
Current house has them and I haven’t checked the gutters yet.
I do recommend getting them if you don’t and you have trees near the house.
We have the slotted leaf filter. Leaves that fall onto it are blown off by the wind.
Yeah, RIGHT! Unless it’s raining. Then the leaves get weighed down on the filter and stay there. Couple times a year I have to go up and push the leaves off. This is still better that having to clean the gutters out.
We had our gutters replaced two years ago and got the upgrade with the guards. The old gutters had what was clearly a DIY job by the previous owner and it was not in good shape. I don’t have a big house and it was quite inexpensive actually. They installed this kind:
You do have to still go out and brush them off once or twice a year, but yeah, still way easier than cleaning out gutters, and professionally installed, should last a very long time.
There’s also the “brush” type, which is basically like a giant pipe cleaner that you lay inside the gutter that works by simply preventing anything else from sitting in there. Extremely easy to install yourself. Cheap, but you have to replace them every other year or so.
I had simple screens over my gutters on my first house. Worked pretty good but a pine needles and other little bits of stuff still got in. The gutters were still pretty clean after 5 years when we moved. Probably would have been 5 more years before cleaning was needed I’ve seen the slotted gutter guards installed at several houses and they seem to work great. Just had gutters installed on our addition last year and plan to get some form of guards on this year. Just depends on what kind of deals I kind find, and whether my legs are in good enough shape to climb ladders and do it myself.
Thank you to those who have replied!
Pretty much any guard will greatly help reduce clogged gutters. If you don’t mind getting on a ladder, you save a lot by getting some guards at the hardware store and doing it yourself rather than having them professionally installed. It might cost you $1/foot to do it yourself versus $5-10/foot for a pro installation. Part of that is obviously the labor, but the pros also have higher quality screens that will keep more gunk out. But if you don’t mind getting on a ladder occasionally to address any issues, self-installed gutters work pretty good.
I originally installed the $1 a foot “gutter helmet” style that claims to allow water to flow over the curve and into the gutter. Heavy rain easily overcame that system. Plus since the actual openings were slots I have plenty of debris get in. I switched to an open cell foam type that fills the entire gutter. That worked better but as mentioned they degraded from the sun.
The type I have now is also a foam called Gutterstuff but has a tough coating sprayed on the top for UV protection. After several years they are still fine. I have lots of debris from the oak and maples and it does indeed dry up and blow away after a while.
After we got our house painted/fixed up about 8 years ago, we got simple screens over the gutters. They work pretty well- after about 8 years, we’ve only had to have them cleaned out twice- stuff like dirt and small debris eventually accumulates in the gutters. But leaves, twigs and other larger stuff don’t, so it’s a much, much slower process.
My wife and I got a quote from Leafguard. It was awful. The person doing the quoting was very high-pressure and pushy.
It started out fine, they explained the merits of their product and took some measurements, but we were shocked at the first price he quoted. We immediately told him that there was no way we going to spend $20k on 150 feet of gutter, and we apologized for wasting his time. He then said he would have to “check with boss” to see if they could come down on the price any, and pulled out his cell phone and started dialing.
At that point, I excused myself from the conversation (my poor wife!) to attend to something my daughter needed. After a couple of hours of playing with my daughter and getting her to bed for the night, I went downstairs expecting to see my wife in her office working, but she was still out of the front porch with the salesman.
She sent me a text indicating that she was exhausted and done with the whole ordeal, at which point I went out to the porch and told the guy directly that the answer was ‘no’ and we were done discussing. He persisted. I began to think I was going to have to call the police. I then said to him that we were going inside and to please leave. When my wife stood up to go inside, he stepped in front of her to block her path. My eyes widened and mouth opened because I couldn’t believe what he was doing. I think he saw the look on my face, and fortunately he then stepped out of the way. We went inside and closed the door. I honestly couldn’t believe the whole situation.
The product may be the best there is, but I will not be doing business with a company that employs those type of high-pressure, must decide now tactics. My wife swears that there was no ‘boss’ on the phone and it was just a big show.
Hope that helps you prepare for getting any quotes. We were not prepared to do battle like buying a used car!
I live under trees. I’ve got maples and pines. I’m on the roof at least six times a year cleaning gutters with an electric leaf blower and a hook to get to the dead branches out of the gutters. I’ve had plugged downspouts. I’ve installed larger downspouts. I’ve installed additional downspouts. It’s getting real old.
I would be very interested to know what gutter guards you were referring to.
The gutter guards were close to this style.
I can’t find a better picture.
There were probably 5 slots built in. They worked great.
As I returned from my walk I noticed the guards on the new place are the lowest grade roll out metal ones. But we don’t have as many trees.
We live in Pacific Northwest. Despite what you may hear, our annual precipitation is less than New York or Boston. We just get it quite a bit of the time as misty rain that goes on and on and on …
But we do get gully washers and other steady, heavy rains.
Last year we replaced our standard-issue gutters with very wide gutters and extra large downspouts. The very wide gutters are a six-eight inch open gutter. The downspouts are probably 75 percent bigger in volume. At the bottom of every downspout is an open clean out grill.
We have no leaves in the gutters. Ever. After a heavy rain I check the cleanouts and regularly grab a big sloppy mess of leaves. None get past the cleanouts.
Cost us $2,000 for about 130 feet of linear gutters.