Are Gutter Guards Maintenance Free?

We hear this question from a lot of homeowners, are there really any maintenance free gutter guards? It is not uncommon for companies to label their guard filter products as “maintenance free.” However, unfortunately, there is no such thing as a maintenance free leaf guard product.

Having guard screens can significantly decrease the amount of gutter maintenance. As you will no longer need to clean the interior of your gutter system. You may still need to brush off the top of the guards to remove the leaves that can inevitably pile on top. To do this, you can use gutter cleaning tools.

With rain, the falling leaves can get hung up on the guards. But as they dry out, quite often, they will blow off on their own. Also, depending on the type of home, your maintenance may be significantly lower than others.

The Main Purpose of Having Gutter Guards

Eliminating the buildup of debris within your gutter system can also help to prevent rusting. If you have aluminum gutters you do not need to worry about rust. However, with steel based materials like galvanized, or galvalume gutters, rusting does happen. As wet leaves and other debris builds up and lays within your gutter system, the moisture it retains lays on the gutter system accelerating the rusting process of these materials.

5 Reasons Why Gutter Protection Is Important

  1. Leaf guards prevent clogging and debris build up. Gutters are meant to collect and channel the water away from the roof. As well as away from your home’s walls, landscaping, and most importantly, your foundation. Adding guards help to keep leaves, roof dirt, pine needles, etc out.
  2. Guards prevent bigger intruders such as rodents and/or birds. They are designed to keep everything out of your gutters from pests, such as, squirrels, snakes, spiders, mosquitoes, termites to the typical leaves, roof grit, snow and ice.
  3. The need for cleanings is less often, if at all. The guards are serving to keep debris and pests out of your gutter system preventing clogging. Cleaning of your gutters may consist of only sweeping debris from the top of the guard system occasionally, if installed correctly.
  4. Guards can stop your gutter system from rusting prematurely. When debris lays in your gutter system it gathers moisture from rain and other outside elements. Wet and/or damp material laying on your gutters can cause them to rust much quicker than they should.
  5. They add extra strength to your gutter system. Adding a gutter guard system can extend the life of you existing gutter system by strengthening it. By securing the guard system to the lip of the gutter and the fascia of the house, it is creating a box like strength. In the winter, this added strength aids in holding up the extra weight of the snow and ice. We offer a complete solution, by also adding heattape to your gutter and guard system. Heattape is designed to help combat ice dams that can form at the edge of your roof and in your gutters.

Do Gutter Guards Work?

So, the short answer to the questions are there really any maintenance free gutter guards is no. However, the purpose of installing guards is to keep your system from clogging. They are to prevent future cleanings of the INTERIOR of your system. Properly installed guards will do this as well. They also will require significantly less maintenance on the exterior of the top of your system.

At The Brothers that just do Gutters, we are continually researching new products to make sure that we are always offering the best materials available on the market to our clients. Recently, when doing this research, we found a new-to-market gutter guard unlike any we’ve seen before. By combining some of the best qualities from guards already on the market with research on the biggest complaints and flaws of a number of industry leading guards, our current guard manufacturer was able to create a unique and extremely effective design and solution.

CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR CHOICE OF GUTTER GUARDS.