Ask the engineer: “Do you cover gutters versus gutter cleaning?”

You see gutter protector ads everywhere telling you that you will never have to clean gutters again, but think twice before you buy. In fact, don’t think; To do investigation. The cost of gutter protection can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars.

Since most gutter covers are known for poor performance, it might make more sense to hire a gutter cleaning service several times a year for roughly $ 75 to $ 100. And if you can indeed find a reputable insured company to serve you, that is probably the best way to go. However, that can be a difficult challenge; And having you or someone else clean the gutters may not be the way to go. Why? Answer: there are several reasons:

1. Not all gutter cleaners work well. Rosemary paid $ 75 to have her gutters cleaned and just three days later they overflowed. Did the contractor do a poor job or did enough leaves fall to clog the downspout? Answer: There is no way to know.

2. The partner Joe hired to clean his gutters did not have insurance. Big problem! Unfortunately, there was an accident with the ladder and the guy sued Joe; and Joe went through a nightmare with the partner’s doctors and Joe’s own insurance company.

3. Claire had a company clean her gutters at an advertised price of $ 75, but ended up paying $ 350. The company replaced the end caps, drop tubes, elbows and charged her an arm and a leg for each additional service.

4. Jim always cleaned his gutters until his ladder slipped and ended up falling out of his living room bay window and ended up in the hospital with a broken pelvis.

Yes, to avoid these problems, it seems like the smart thing to do is to install a gutter guard with the promise of solving clogged gutter problems. But buyer beware. If you choose the wrong product, it can also be a nightmare with flooded basements, mold, mildew, soil erosion, and even worse, being totally dependent on the installation company as you can no longer access your own gutters to clean them.

So let’s do some research. Basically, there are six different types of gutter protection devices:

1. Detection devices that are not actually recognized as gutter protection devices. Made of wire, metal, or plastic, they operate simply by gravity and require routine ladder maintenance.

2. Filters, membranes and brushes installed in or on existing gutters. They are basically no more effective than screens and require routine ladder maintenance.

3. Fin type with rounded front nose and solid flat top. Your advertising graphics lead you to believe that debris is thrown to the ground when, instead, in medium to high debris areas enough debris adheres to the surface to clog gutters. Here you have to depend on the installation company for the service. See the resource box for photos.

4. Solid flat lid with rounded front nose and tundish – fin type with tundish. Since the basic fin type fails, the next progression was to add a channel. But it doesn’t take a college graduate to figure out that debris going into the canal (basic detection system) will either clog the canal or break off into the canal and clog it. See the resource box for photos.

5. Rain dispersion units or folding type gutters. These require removing the gutters and installing a gutter with a flipping hinge or fins (installed horizontal to the fascia board) to disperse the water. Both seem viable until you see them work. The rain dispersal unit does not work in slow rain and debris accumulates on it, preventing its operation. The flip-clean gutter requires a layer of rain for when the gutter is full of rotting debris. Clean drop gutters are also known to warp rendering them useless.

6. Rounded front nose with vertical louvered water collectors and a flat solid top. Whereas with the gutter cover fin type that will pass full size sheets, the louvers discriminate the size of debris that the gutter cover lets into the gutter. This gutter guard is the only round nose type that limits the amount of debris or the size of debris that can pass into the gutter.

This unique system has shown gutters to flow freely in heavy debris conditions for twenty years; And it is not small thing. The only downside is that in high-debris conditions, debris can collect on the louvers and block them, which means some maintenance is required.

While most other products require someone to climb a ladder and clean the gutter or deck, it can easily be done from the ground with a telescopic pole and brush. Because it’s easy to see where cleaning is required, there’s no guessing where to brush. No rain coats are required (as could be with the drop-type gutter) to do this simple task, as it can actually be done in a suit and tie.

After all, telling someone that they have to clean their gutters several times during the fall that they will not need maintenance is like asking them to believe in Santa Claus.