We have had a Leaf Guard system for several years and are quite happy with it. Our roofer said it was a better system than the Gutter Guard from the standpoint of the shingles. He said that shingles could be replaced much easier if need be with the Leaf Guard than with the Gutter Guard system.
Bill Benson ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Howell To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 4:37 AM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Gutter Guard-type Systems All, They had a Main Street fair here the other day and there were a number of vendors selling all sorts of stuff. There were two vendors selling gutter guard-type systems; one being the Gutter Helmet and the other I can't recall the name, but it was interesting. I mention all of this because I've been considering various options and I've tried one that seems to work, but I have not really decided if I like it entirely or not. The Gutter Helmet is the type of system where the water runs down the surface and roles under the end and drops into the gutter. The competition claims you can still get the little bits and such in the gutter and yes I am sure that's true, but I'm also sure water that does come into the gutter will wash the junk out. The second system was rather interesting in that you have a flat surface on the gutter so nothing slips under the shingle as it does with the helmet type systems. What made this other system different is that the plate that covers the gutter has holes for the water to drop through, but in addition it has a 50 micron screen that won't even let the sandy stuff from the shingles pass. I asked the lady how would any stuff that would collect on top of the gutter be cleared off and she said the wind would take care of that. Okay well all this stuff sounds good, but then the other option out there is the GUtter Brush which is just that, a great big bottle brush that fits inside the gutter and it looks like a bottle brush. I did get a sample of this and it seems to work quite well. I did find a lot of really small stuff along with the larger stuff backed up behind the sample. I only had a short piece so put it closest to the down spout to see what collected. The only way to know for sure is to purchase enough to fill an entire gutter and see how it works. So, the point of all this is to see if anyone has had experience with any of these systems and if they felt they were worth the investment. Our gutters seem to primarily collect pine needles from neighbors and junk from the roof. We don't seem to get a lot of large leaves or as far as I know wasps and such living in there, but you can bet they aren't welcome and need to stay away as well. tnx, [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]