Leaf Gutter Guards
#11
My Bride is pushing for these, afraid when I'm up on a 30 foot ladder to clean.  I have the larger "commercial" sized gutters if that matters much.  What experience do y'all have with these in terms of type, brand, etc.  Just starting my research.  Thanks in advance.
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#12
Depends on where you live I would say. I have seen those things become a nightmare if you live in an area that gets sleet and snow and ice storms. Seen them get full of ice and icicles hang from them pulling them down and causing huge damage inside walls. I would never put them on.
John T.
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#13
I have some on my house and rally like them.  No problem with ice build up and the wind blows the leaves off.
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#14
we had some put on with the roof.  Unfortunately they weren't done right and I've had to take them down.  Except for the second story roof, wouldn't be prudent for me to go up there.  Going to have to pay someone to replace them
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#15
(07-26-2020, 11:08 AM)Admiral Wrote: My Bride is pushing for these, afraid when I'm up on a 30 foot ladder to clean.  I have the larger "commercial" sized gutters if that matters much.  What experience do y'all have with these in terms of type, brand, etc.  Just starting my research.  Thanks in advance.
 I have the Smart Screen brand and like them, no problems with ice and snow.   The biggest consideration is what is getting in your gutters,   Maple seeds will fit into the 1/4" round hole type and look like you planted them there.   The Smart Screen has a rounded outer edge so leaves can blow off and the holes are small enough maple seeds will not fit.  I could see pine needles fitting in the holes if they go straight in.  The types with screen wire inside can get moldy and plug up, the foam block type become a frozen lump inside the gutter.  In my area we have oak trees with the lacy part that is in spring, elm trees with the ton of seed pods and maples with the helicopters.  So far (several years) they have stayed clean.   The only problem is with very hard rains where two angles of the roof flow into a corner is overflow.  I install a piece of aluminum 1" angle trim to the center of the guard which slows the speed of the water on top of the guard which intern stops the overflow.
 The Smart Screen ones are a little harder to install as they are screwed both into the top outer lip of the gutter and into the fascia.    Roly  (they do make them for 6"gutters as well as the 5"but may need to be ordered)
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#16
I installed these on our gutters. I bought the 204' pack and it was just barely enough and I mean barely. I have a few other spots like the roof over the back porch that still need gutters and will need them and the shop as well. They make 5 and 6".

     We have many many post oak trees. I call them trash oaks because they really aren't very pretty trees. They are more like ugly sticks growing out of the ground. Very slow growing but they are very drought hearty which is very important here. They produce extremely tight ring and very heavy wood for grills and smokers. They suck up a massive amount of water from the soil as well and make it hard for anything else to grow and raise the humidity allot. Almost like an invasive species... IE it's 93* and the humidity is 58%.


      Anyway they produce massive amounts of pollen tassles in the spring and I was having to dig easily 50 pounds if not more of it out of the gutters in the spring. And then leaves from fall to spring and again in the summer if it gets too hot and dry and the trees drop all their leaves. After putting them on there is very little making it into the gutters to worry about. 

      The only problem I have is at the end of the valleys. Our house is shaped like a plus sign which is horrible on so many levels.. But when it rains here it rains hard and the water will come down the valley and splash right over the top of the gutter guards. I haven't picked up the diverters to put on the gutters but even with them it's still going to need something else. The only place that carries them is Menards and our closest is a days drive away unfortunately.
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#17
(07-26-2020, 11:08 AM)Admiral Wrote: My Bride is pushing for these, afraid when I'm up on a 30 foot ladder to clean.  I have the larger "commercial" sized gutters if that matters much.  What experience do y'all have with these in terms of type, brand, etc.  Just starting my research.  Thanks in advance.

I have been researching these because I had to have my roof replaced last summer and they took out the cheapie ones I had on my gutters and did not put them back. The ones I had were the course mesh 20' roll that Lowes and HD sell.  It worked surprisingly well,  I  have not had to clean my downspouts in the gutters I put them on. But I figured I would look at something a bit better since the maple "helicopter" seeds did get stuck and I almost started my own thread a few weeks back on this very subject. I have an area on my roof that I do not have a tall enough ladder to reach and I am too afraid to tackle from the roof side (I can walk up from the lower roof), so I did not install the cheapie gutter guards in that section and the downspouts in that section did clog.  I seriously thought about getting an estimate from Leaf Filter, which advertises heavily in my area, so I did not have to buy another ladder to reach the high roof for a one-time job, but when I hear people are being quoted $4-6K for LF, DIY is the only way I can do this reasonably. 

After doing some online research, unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of legitimate reviews on the web, but it seems the gutter guards that require the least maintenance are those that use micromesh. The only semi-reliable review/recommendation is from Ask the Builder (see link below).  ATB is not totally unbiased and the link to the DIY micromesh screens he recommends are no longer available, but there's enough information there to come to the conclusion that micromesh is the way to go and there are alternative DIY micromesh gutter screens available.

Based on what I can see about the DIY screens he recommended and the alternatives, I am leaning toward getting Gutterglove's DIY product (they also have professionally installed versions) through HD because when bought in bulk, they appear to be the best value when compared to Amazon's recommendation for an alternative to the Leaf's Out that ATB recommends, but is no longer available.  And all three appear to be the same micromesh design leading me to suspect they all came out of the same factory, but obviously that is only speculation.  

Link to Ask the Builder articles:  https://www.askthebuilder.com/gutterguard/
Paul
They were right, I SHOULDN'T have tried it at home!
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#18
Back when we unfortunately still had a Costco membership we had one of their in store hucksters peddling overpriced services sent a LeafGuard rep out to give us a quote.  The guy came out and gave us a really long salesman pitch and finally at the end of it gave us a quote. He quoted us $5500 and that was only for gutters on about 150' not the whole house. And for the part near the panel he said we would have to have the elec company disconnect the power at the pole for them do do it... Uh yeah not going to happen as there is no way to disconnect it there anyway. 

           I ended up making a trip to Menards and picked up the material. All said and done I have about $600 into our gutters. In fact I could have bought a trailer with all the tools and equipment to make my own seamless leafguard style gutters for what they quoted just to do our house....

         Oh and the salesman pitch from the leaf guard guy was worse than a car salesman pitch. I would rather deal with a car salesman than another leafguard salesman. I really wanted to tell the guy just give me a quote or get back in your car. What should have taken no more than 30 minutes took over 2 hours.
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#19
We used to live in the woods (literally) and had several large Oak and Hickory trees over shadowing the house, and even a fir tree. When I had to gutters replaced I went with something called Hallet Gutter Guard. It's not any different than several other makes, a solid covering that rolls over at the edge to allow the water into the gutter and keep the leaves/debris out. It actually worked really well, the biggest problem I had was when some kind of wren found a way under the cover and built it's nest right on top of the downspout drain. At the time I was considering one I liked a lot better called Waterloov (you can search that) but because they had a patent that was unbreakable (apparently) it was extremely expensive. Since then I think that patent expired and there are several copies on the market.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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#20
(07-27-2020, 08:16 AM)fredhargis Wrote: We used to live in the woods (literally) and had several large Oak and Hickory trees over shadowing the house, and even a fir tree. When I had to gutters replaced I went with something called Hallet Gutter Guard. It's not any different than several other makes, a solid covering that rolls over at the edge to allow the water into the gutter and keep the leaves/debris out. It actually worked really well, the biggest problem I had was when some kind of wren found a way under the cover and built it's nest right on top of the downspout drain. At the time I was considering one I liked a lot better called Waterloov (you can search that) but because they had a patent that was unbreakable (apparently) it was extremely expensive. Since then I think that patent expired and there are several copies on the market.

wasn't that called Helmet Gutter Guard??
John T.
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