What Happens When Gutter Guards and Leaf Guards Clog?
All gutter guards clog. But hold on. Whereas all of them clog requiring laborious and sometimes dangerous maintenance, one is easily maintained.
First, the terms gutter covers, gutter guards, gutter protectors, and leaf guards are basically interchangeable. Some companies advertise screens as gutter guards and that’s just a misnomer as leaf guards all characteristically all have a solid top surface.
Basically there are six different types of gutter covers listed in no particular order:
- Filters, membranes, and brushes installed on or in existing gutters–they call themselves leaf guards.
- Screens. There are many different types-flat with all types of openings (round, square, louvers…) made of plastic, wire, and metal. Some disguise themselves with steps in the screening and one even has troughs in it.
- Rain dispersal and the flipping type of gutters. Existing gutters are replaced with either a dispersal vanes or gutters on hinges.
- Flat solid top with rounded front nose and a double row louvered front vertical surface to collect water known as the Waterloov gutter covers.
- The basic solid top with rounded front nose–fin type leaf guards. And there’s one in which in addition to the fin also has small openings on the top–basically a screen in conjunction with a fin)
- The advanced solid top with rounded front nose and a trough–fin type with trough.
Of approximately 100 different gutter covers/screen/filter products to choose from all but one fit in five categories. The easiest one to maintain stands alone. Click on the link for pictures of the various gutter guards.
The reality is that all screens will clog.To maintain them, one has to ascend a ladder to clean the screen and the gutter beneath the screen because dried debris on top of the screen is often pummeled into the gutter by rain water. This maintenance is often more work than just cleaning the gutters would have been. One screen clamps to the front gutter lip, is made of vinyl, disguises itself with steps and troughs, but basically it’s a screen and is nearly impossible to remove without destroying the gutter when if fails.
Filters are either a filter installed in what is otherwise a solid top surface or some kind of filter or filament or brush installed inside the gutter. Think about it for a moment. What happens to the debris that accumulates on top of the brush, filament, or filter? It’s just going to lay there and accumulate and as it dries harden like paper mache. Experience shows that after two years at most, this debris solidifies resulting in clogging the gutter. The brush-in-the gutter system recognizes this and suggests removing the brush from the gutter periodically to clean them–can you imagine the fun in that–slop all over the roofing, siding and windows?
There are a dozen or so of the basic fin type leaf guards with solid tops. They are either covers installed on top of gutters or the all-in-one leaf guards to replace existing gutters. Patents have expired and the field has exploded with many variations of this style. The rain water sticks to the rounded surface and flows downward into the gutter. Years of experience shows that in addition to water, sufficient tree debris adheres to the surface in mild-to-heavy debris conditions to clog the gutter.
Maintenance can only be done by ascending a ladder, removing sections of the leaf guard and cleaning the gutter and downspout–not a pleasant task for the homeowner who is often at the mercy of the installing company to render service. Because some of these protectors are nailed into the roofing, the roof is in double jeopardy of developing a leak when they are replaced from being cleaned. In the case of the all-in-one leaf guard, the gutter must be flushed. Larger than life downspouts are used to accommodate this flushing, but it still requires someone to ascend a ladder to do the dirty dangerous job.
To rectify the design deficiency in the basic fin type, two types of hybrid gutter covers have been developed:
1. A basic fin type with small openings on the top solid surface–basically a screen in combination with fin. It is also a slave to the same issues screens face in that it clogs and the fin then passes enough debris to clog the gutter.
2. The advanced fin (which in addition to having a fin) contains a trough with sieve openings. It doesn’t take an MIT graduate to see that the same amount of debris that flows over the fin will also enter the trough where either the sieve openings in the trough clogs or enough debris passes the sieve openings to clog the gutter. Again, servicing is a big problem.
The replacement category has nothing to do with protecting existing gutters but instead replacing them with a:
Dispersal system which clogs with debris on top and doesn’t work in light-to-medium rain fall conditions resulting in soil erosion all around the roof line.
Replacement gutters that are cleaned by flipping them or using telescopic pressure system to clean gutters–messy and dirty chores for the homeowner who really needs to wear a rain coat.
All-in-One Gutter/Guard (one of the fin types)
Both fin types of guards are in the right direction but they don’t limit the size of the debris that the fin collects. Wouldn’t it be nice to limit the size of debris? Wouldn’t it be great to have two rows of interspersed louvers that deliver the water into the gutter and limit the size of debris that enters the gutter?
So if all gutter protectors clog, would it not be great if the gutter stayed free flowing and never clogged for nine, thirteen, fifteen, or twenty plus years; and louvers that might clog in heavy debris conditions be visible from the ground and be easily maintained from the ground by using a telescopic pole and brush? And wouldn’t it be great if this were not a dirty job but one that could be referred to as “suit and tie” maintenance if it every had to be done? The Waterloov gutter covers accomplishes this and more.
In reality, to tell anyone who has to clean his gutters more than twice in the Fall that a guard will never need servicing is like asking him to believe in Santa Claus.
For more information please visit http://www.Waterloov.com with photos of various gutter guards at http://www.waterloov.com/Articles/Pictures.htm