Ask The Engineer On How To Choose The Best Gutter Guards

Gutter protectors do an important job. They keep tree debris in the form of blossoms, twigs, and leaves from clogging your gutter. Choosing the best gutter cover should be easy, but it's not. They can all be made to look good and they are all advertised to be the best gutter cover. As a homeowner, it makes the most sense for you to do some investigation. While all these products advertise to be the best leaf guards, the design of each of them is different.
The oldest design of gutter covers is that of a screen device. Gutter screens were invented in the early part of the 1900. The less sophisticated initial types have openings that are large which allow sufficient leaves or blossoms into the gutter to clog it. They must be routinely accessed to be cleaned and often times require more labor to clean and reinstall than it is to simply clean gutters. Another variation of gutter screens are foam inserts, or fine mesh made of surgical steel. Debris accumulates on top of everyone of these type of gutter screens to the point where rain water is blocked from getting into the gutter.
More sophisticated gutter cover designs were invented later on. Go to Google and search for "Niagara gutter guard" to find a sample of of the early design of solid top gutter guards. This type of gutter cover has a front nose that is rounded. Water sticks to the nose and falls into the gutter. More recent designs have perforations in the top to collect water which makes them a screen hybrid. gutter cover? That's right, it sticks to the cover and goes into the gutter. If the leaf guard also has perforations on the top, those sieve openings clog. As a potential owner of this type of system, you might want to know how it is cleaned or maintained. The bottom line is that you can not maintain or clean it from the ground. Either you are at the mercy of the installing company to service them, or you have to go up a ladder and clean them yourself.
The problem with the single fin type of gutter cover design is that it allows all sizes of debris to flow into the gutter. Everything that sticks to the surface of the [gutter guard. The nose type of leaf guard is sold both as a cover and gutter as one complete piece.
What would you do to improve this design? If you Google "Care Free solid top gutter protector" you'll find the next improvement. The next improvement either has a single row of apertures (with louvers in each aperture guiding water into the gutter) per the Care Free gutter or it has a trough with sieve openings to limit the size of the debris. While this type of leaf guard is a step in the right direction, under heavy debris conditions it will not keep out enough debris. Debris that comes down the face of the gutter guard can still wash into the gutter from the gutter lip. Even though it is a smaller quantity of small sized debris than with the nose type, someone has to go up a ladder to remove the leaf guards and clean the gutter. Also consider that the leaf guard with a trough is nailed into the roofing which adds a complication to maintenance.
Can there be a maintenance free gutter protector? What would the best gutter guards look like? How can the single row louvered gutter protector system or the trough gutter cover system be improved? Please google "Waterloov gutter guards" and see another design. Observe that there are two rows of apertures. In each aperture is a louver which causes the rain water to go into the gutter. Of all possible variations, it is the best leaf guard recommended by Consumer Reports for two reasons.
The first reason is that nothing can be washed in from the lip of the gutter and the second reason is that nothing larger the three fourths of an inch can ever get through this gutter protector.
Twenty two years after this design was first installed nothing ever clogs it inside the gutter. But how about maintenance? And why would maintenance be required? Because of the two rows of louvers in the best gutter protector design, the leaf guard never needs to be removed to clean the gutter. However, as with all the designs we've looked at the openings of the leaf guard can still be clogged with small leaves and blossoms. The good news is that because it is visible from the ground the homeowner can use a telescopic pole and brush assembly to easily clean it.
How much does the best gutter protector cost? It is ironic for in some areas of the country the first solid top design type (Niagara) and the second (Care-Free) are often a few dollars more than the double row louvered system. So while the best gutter protector system is actually worth two or three times as much as the other gutter guard systems, it's comparably priced.