GUTTER GUARDS
Do We Recommend Them? — Yes and No.
Homes that have a lot of trees benefit from installing our affordable gutter guards. The guards will reduce the number of cleanings needed each year and will help prevent overflow problems between the Spring and Fall cleanings.
Condominiums and Apartments that have a lot of trees are usually better served by scheduling more than two cleanings per year instead of installing gutter guards. At these communities, the cleaning cost per linear foot is much less than for individual homes due to the economy of scale. Therefore, in most cases it is not cost effective to install gutter guards at communities.
We are happy to provide free consultation for your community to assess if installing gutter guards would be cost effective.
MAPLE LEAF GUTTER GUARDS
There are many products that we could offer, but we choose to offer only one: gutter screens made with heavy duty aluminum. The front edge of each four foot section is reinforced, and we use screws to secure this edge to the top lip of the gutter. The rear of each section slides under the shingles.
The advantages to our gutter guards are:
1. Affordability - They cost significantly less than most other gutter guards.
2. Durability - They should last as long as your gutters.
3. Effectiveness - They greatly reduce overflow problems between cleanings.
4. Practicality - They allow cleaning the gutters in the future, unlike many other gutter guards.
OTHER GUTTER GUARDS
Many other products exist. Some are completely ineffective (cheap screens, poorly designed covers, etc.); others are fairly effective but not cost effective due to their high costs.
The gutter guards that are best at keeping debris out of the gutter, also restrict some water flow into the gutter. Therefore, in very heavy rains, some water overflows.
We do not recommend spending a lot of money for a product that guarantees you will never again need to clean your rain gutters. A company's guarantee is only useful if the company is still in business when you need them; and you will need them at some point.
Also, most of these products make future cleaning extremely difficult, if not impossible, due to their design. We can provide you with regularly scheduled rain gutter cleaning for many years for less than the cost of installing these "never again" products.