leafguard gutters....worth the extra $$$?

[ADC]

subject says it all...we do have a fair amount of trees...

TIA

[tgilb]

If they're pine trees don't bother.

[Bill & Debbie]

When I had my home built 8 years ago, I paid the extra money to have Leafguard gutters installed. I think it was money well spent. Most of the trees around my house and my neighbors houses are pine trees. My neighbors have to clean their clogged gutters several times a year. When I see them doing this, I'm thankful for the decision I made.

Bill

[Rileyesi]

I have no personal experience, however, I have heard that they are "hornet hotels". Apparently, they make excellent housing for wasps.

[Art]

Have them now for 8 years, work great on pine and hardwoods. Had helmets added in previous house. Did not work at all. Go with the leafguard brand.

If you have any wierd corners they may say they cannot do it. But a good installer can hand do just about anything with them. We had a bay that came out so the roof line was strange. They told me that one section they could not do. I had regular gutters put up there. Were clogged in a few months. Called leafguard again and this time I got the guy to try and they have been great ever since. Probably should get oversized downspouts too if it isn't standard. It is where I am with the Leafguard contractor.

[Micro Angelo]

In a previous posting, Usenet was endowed with the following text from "ADC" :

The LeafGuard product, as with most other cutter "hoods", are grossly over-priced. That's because the dealer has buy an overpriced dealership and MUST buy the product from a central source with outrageously high prices, relatively speaking.

On top of that, they are over-hyped and simply don't do what they claim to do.

With pine needles, a gutter hood will prevent more needles from entering the gutter as compared to a mesh product, with caveats. Only a premium mesh product, by the way, should be considered.

But, here's the rub(s). Even with gutter hoods, some pine needles will still enter the gutters. The same dynamic that is supposed to cause the rain water to go over the hood and into the gutter also causes the pine needle to follow the water into the gutter. With some brands, the needles will even block the water channel, preventing the rain water from entering the gutter at all. Then, your gutters are useless. When it gets to the point that the inside of the gutters need cleaning, good luck getting in there! No such problem with the screens I use

In my opinion, no product will make your gutters 100 percent maintenance free. So, in my view, you want a product that performs well, but at a low cost. In my experience, the product that works the best is Steelco gutter screens.

I have them on my house, and I have pine trees. The Steelco screens are the highest quality mesh product I could find, after considerable research. Some pine needles do get through, but has reduced the overall problem by 95%. Instead of cleaning my gutters every 6 weeks, now I just clean them once a year. And that's another thing... cleaning them is a breeze. I just remove one 3' section of the screen and use my blower to blow out any debris.

So, far, I think it was the right choice. It's not the perfect solution, but the price is right. With me doing the install (pretty easy), it was about $1.15 per foot, or less. This stuff is galvanized steel and, at this point, should last longer than me!

The Steelco website is

.

Mike

[Art]

Eight years and our leafguard gutters are completely clean even though we have pine and hardwoods. When the house was first built one section had regular gutters. They were filled in 3 months. Had them replaced with leafguard and like I said, they are completely clean. One trick is oversized downspouts so if anything gets in it is not going to be there long.

Price depends on market. In Raleigh they are very expensive but pretty cheap on Long Island where there are several competing dealers. They are 3 times regular gutters in price.