Fall is definitely here and leaves and pine needles are falling and most likely filling up your gutters if you don’t have proper gutter guards in place!  These leaves and pine needles tend to pack down inside your gutters and eventually can clog them up to the point where water won’t flow easily – especially on those days when its pouring.  And when water won’t drain down, it has nowhere else to go but back into your roof, under the roofing and down the sides and under your soffit.  These areas aren’t vertical so the water doesn’t completely drain off and begins to soak into the wood through small cracks and openings and over a short period of time creates wood rot.

One option is to break out your ladder and clean the gutters yourself or hire a company to do them but the problem is that you don’t want to wait on doing this because it doesn’t take long for your gutters to fill and this happens before all of the leaves and needles have completely fallen so you’ll more than likely need to do this at least 2-3 times before everything has fallen, otherwise you are taking a chance for roof and soffit damage.

What About Gutter Guards?  And Do Gutter Guards Work?

While annual inspection and maintenance of gutters is an important part of your home care routine, you can make the chore easier by installing a gutter guard system. These products help keep debris out of your gutters and mean less work for you and fewer worries that something will go wrong. By ensuring that water flows freely from the roof, they prevent damage from backed up water and ice dams when snow starts to accumulate. There are several approaches to gutter guards. They all have pros and cons and will require some planning against each particular situation. Some homes see more leaf debris than others so you need to determine the scope of your particular challenge. Common gutter guard systems include:

  • Reverse Curve Guards – These are typically made from metal or vinyl and sit over the gutter opening. They essentially form a cover that allows water to slip around the guard but prevents large debris from coming to rest in the gutter.  The major drawback with these is they do not handle heavy rain very well. High volumes of water will simply overshoot the gutter and fall to the ground below.

  • Slit Gutter Covers – These are a variant of the reverse-curve and usually include one or two recessed slots that increase the amount of rainwater that can flow into the gutter. These systems also struggle to manage heavy downpours like the simple recurve system.

  • Metal Screens – These curved screens come in short sections and fasten onto the outer lip of the gutter.  They are inexpensive and easy to install but are susceptible to clogging because the opening size in the mesh catches small debris.

  • Micro Mesh Gutter Guards – Micro mesh guards consist of a support frame and a filtering mesh material which ranges from fine to micro mesh. The advantage of micro mesh technology is that they provide the best flow through characteristics and do not clog with small debris. While their performance is superior the only real drawback is that the systems are more complicated to install.

How To Choose The Right Gutter Guard Option?

Remember all homes will face different challenges based on the type and slope of the roof as well as the environment around the home. Some homes will never see a leaf in their gutter. Others will face an onslaught of debris as a constant challenge.

Give us a call and one of our specialists will come out and evaluate your unique home situation and offer you the very best option for you home specifically.

Improper Gutter Guard Installation

One thing to consider is that although there are several Do it yourself gutter guard and/or gutter screen options, proper choice of guard and proper installation is so important.

If you choose the wrong type of gutter guard or screen for this area or don’t install them properly, you could end up with a whole new problem and still taking a chance on roof or soffit damage.

If you choose to have us install gutter guards, we’ll clean your existing gutters first and then install the guards.