I’ve seen the covers that are basically a sieve, they have holes that the rain should pass through, the leaves stay out of the gutter, but I hear the leaves still build up on top of the shelf?
I’ve seen foam things you put into the gutter, same issue.
Are there any adaptations that people have used to avoid having to access the gutter often? We have a sloped side with the gutter being 30+ feet above ground. It’s not safe for accessing regularly and I’d love to find a permanent solution.
I’m not sure what kind we have but we still need to get them cleaned once or twice a year, $75.
None, apparently. If you have a composite roof, the particulate stuff that washes off the roof will clog the gutter covers no matter what the design. Leaves can be dealt with by blowing them off, but this stuff requires much more work.
We are getting new gutters in September. Surprisingly, the gutter covers were never mentioned by the sales persons. No sales pushes. I will ask the gutter guy what he thinks about these and will report.
We installed Master Shield gutters on our house and did not need to have gutters cleaned after that (maybe 10 -15 years ago). We did find that in the winter we sometimes had icicles form and hang down but didn’t have issues with gutters getting clogged/impeding water flow from roof. Overall, we were quite pleased although the installation was quite expensive if I remember correctly.
Do you have a composite roof as Bunsen Burner mentioned?
From what I have seen, I think Gutter Helmet does the best job. But they are expensive. As are other gutter guards. We have our gutters cleaned once a year and for the cost of gutter guards/screens, etc, we can have the gutters cleaned for 30+ years. Won’t be in this house for 1/2 that time.
No personal experience, but was told by a roofing guy that the covers are ineffective in our area (Pacific Northwest) because they don’t keep out the fir and pine needles and those still end up clogging the gutters, then the covers make it more difficult to clean. I have not confirmed with anyone who actually has them, though.
Yep, PNW here, with Fir needles and Maple seedlings. I hate when I am growing Maple trees in my gutters and I also hate being up a ladder to the third story, on a hill.
So, we’re pushing the extent of my roof knowledge. I don’t believe we have a composite roof. Here’s what I do know - the house is over 100 years old - the roof has a layer of plywood that is covered by shingles that I believe are made of asphalt. Over the course of our time at the house we have had to pull off the entire roof b/c it had 3 layers of shingles and at that point we needed to remove all layers, replace the plywood and start over with a single shingle layer. Not sure if that answers the question. We are in the Northeast. As others have said, the cost well exceeded the cost of having the gutters cleaned for our entire tenure in the house (several decades) - but it made our lives easy and eliminated the need to have the gutters cleaned and watch for when the gutters were clogged and water overflowed gutters.
We have mesh type gutter guards. Both are inexpensive from Big Box stores. They help, but are not perfect. We didn’t want anything that would obstruct the visibility into the gutters. If anything gets past more solid type guards, you would not see where the problem was.
The mesh type guards do keep the leaves off, as well as the maple seeds. Smaller stuff and particulate from the shingles can still go though the mesh, but most washes down evenutally. We placed added strainers at downspout point of entry. Our logic for the extra strainer was to prevent the small stuff from eventually plugging the lines between downspout & sewer (below the yard), where it would be much harder to unclog. But the strainers caused different problems. The small stuff eventually plugged the opening and stopped the water from reaching the downspout, and rain would just overflow the gutters. So, we’ve removed & will see what happens.
We still have the gutters cleaned about 2-3x per year. Low slope roof, so DH usually does it, but we will hire that job out soon. Except for the downspout strainer points, the small stuff usually washes out eventually.
We have two types of mesh. One is nicer looking black to match the roof. They clip onto the gutters, and stay in place well. BUT, they are also hard to remove. The other is the cheap galvanized grey mesh. DH likes those better since they are much easier to place. Not visually as nice, but also very easy to remove when necessary. We noticed more ice dams after we used the black type guards. Have no idea if they are part of the problem, or just a coincidence.
We were told the same in NC and SC, lots and lots of pine needles here.
Our asphalt (or composite?) shingles do shed the little pebbles. The house was built with wood shake roof, which was required by development covenants at the time. Our replacement roof caused at least one of our underground gutter extensions to clog - we rerouted above ground after there was water backing up in to the basement.
Our new roof and gutters are IN!! Talked to the gutter guys. They say there is no perfect gutter cover. The best solution apparently is to get wider gutters (which we did).
Leaf Guard gutters, not a cover.