Flat roof and leaf guard

[GMM]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who had a little flood today, but mine was caused by the leaf guard (kind of upside-down plastic basket) on the outlet of my flat roof becoming blocked. Having cleared it this evening, I got to wondering what the point of these is: All mine ever seems to do is to collect leaves and block. If it wasn't there, presumably the leaves would just go down the pipe and collect on the grille of the drain below, where they would be easier to clear, and cause less flooding.

What d'you think chaps - should I just chuck it away, or does it do something useful that I'm overlooking?

Cheers all

[PeterC]

Depends on what's downstream of it - better a blocked grid on the gully than floods. On a friend's house the leaftrap was useful because of the double bend in the downpipe and, more so, because the DP went straight in to the ground - no gully! In his case the gutter just overflowed, so no problem.

[GMM]

Well...that's the way I was looking at it. Yesterday, the level in the flat roof rose high enough to test the flashing against the house. I found out because there was a puddle indoors. It seems to me that the worse that can happen without the guard is that the grille in the gully will block and water will spill onto the ground outside, which is probably a much better outcome!

I can se the issue if there's no gully, of course. So maybe I'll go and remove it...once the rains stops!

[The Medway Handyman]

Its doing what its meant to do! Stopping leaves & stuff getting into the down pipe.

You are supposed to get up there & clean it out every now and then - its called maintenance :-)

[GMM]

Couldn't agree more Dave, except for two things. First, there were hardly any leaves up there, but the amount of rain sluiced what were there to the leaf guard. When the level rose, these acted as a better seal. Second, I don't understand why it's better to clog the outlet from the roof, which encourages the standing water to seek out any ways through the flashing etc, than to clog the gully, which leads to a spillage of water at ground level. I can see the point if a blockage at the bottom of the down pipe was worse, but here it seems preferable. Actually, I only replaced this guard last autumn after quite a few (problem-free) years without one, as I was up there replacing the guttering and found the old guard had been 'recycled' to space a down- pipe bracket from the main roof away from the wall, by a previous bodger(!). Seems all I did was create/reinstate a problem!

[The Medway Handyman]

Generally best practise is to have the 'clog up' point easily accessable. For this reason gutter downpipes are only a sliding fit e.g. very easy to dismantle for clearance. In many/most installations the downpipe is cemented into the ground at the base - to stop it being physically knocked out of position.

If its an 'open' discharge it would be preferable, but as I said, many are cemented into the ground.

If you are in the situation where the bottom of the downpipe is easy to access and its easy to remove any bends & the clips to clear blockages, then remove the leaf guard. If not, 'leaf' it where it is & check it regularly.