Gutter Guards: Covers or Screen?

With fall fast approaching, gutters everywhere will start collecting those beautiful, colored leaves pretty soon. As a result, a good number of people will have their ladders ready in order to clear out their gutters. Unless, of course, they’re people who had the foresight to invest in gutter guards.

Gutter guards are an attachable gutter part that keeps debris like leaves and twigs from clogging your gutters. Not only do they keep your gutters debris-free, they also save you the time you would have wasted getting up on your roof to clear the debris yourself.

Typically, gutter guards are classified into two primary categories: covers and screens. Screens are patterned after water filters. As such, screens allow a lot of water to pass through the gutter while keeping large pieces of debris out. Popular gutter screen materials are metal, nylon and aluminum. With cheaper material, gutter screens are cheap and easy to install but suffer from durability issues.

Gutter covers tend to be larger and more difficult to install as compared to gutter screens. Gutter covers function by literally covering a large area of the gutter, forcing debris to simply slide down and away from the gutter. However, the size of gutter covers prohibit large amounts of water from entering as well. This leads to water sliding off the gutter cover (just like debris) during heavy rainfall.

Tips for a Clean Gutter

With autumn fast approaching, you can expect trees around your home to soon shed their leaves. If you fail to keep your gutter clean it will inevitably begin to collect fallen leaves and twigs. If you don’t have any gutter covers installed, this can soon prove quite problematic.

Gutter cleaning is a simple, albeit tedious, chore. As such, it is easy to neglect cleaning your gutter or postpone cleaning it. This can cause clogged gutters which, if left ignored for too long, can lead to water damage.

Cleaning a gutter is a simple enough job that you can carry out on your own. You can use a small trowel to clear away any muck and grime that has accumulated over the past several months. To speed up the process, you can use a hose or a leaf blower to clear debris.

Although cleaning the gutter is a simple task, there are a few risks associated with it. Among other things, make sure that your ladder is always on a flat and secure surface to reduce the risk of falling and injuring yourself. It is also advisable to avoid storing tools in your pockets to avoid further injury should you fall. To keep your gutters clean for far longer, you can invest in gutter guards.

Say Bye to Infestations With Gutter Covers

While there’s a lot to be thankful for after a raging storm has passed, it’s still not a good moment to rejoice. Chances are, your gutter that was previously clogged with debris has failed to direct the rainwater down the drain channel, leading the substance instead to the interiors of your home. This can result in rooms getting soaked in water—places where creatures such as termites and ants thrive.

Termites, in particular, have been known for their ability to destroy property and weaken the foundations of various structures. When left to propagate, they can jeopardize the quality of living that you and your family enjoy. To prevent termites and other undesirable organisms from trespassing your home, make sure that your gutter has gutter covers or guards.

Thanks to its textured surface, gutter covers or guards prevent anything other than rainwater from entering the gutters. With leaves, twigs, and other pieces of gunk out of the picture, homeowners are guaranteed that their gutters will continue to be free-flowing. Thus, no amount of water will permeate the household and give rise to termites and other infestations.

With gutter covers or guards, there’s no need to worry about pests in the house or the state of the gutter. Indeed, these components can make the sunshine after the rain a wee bit brighter.

Factors that May Cause Gutter Downspouts to Fail

A downspout is the part of your gutter that leads rainwater from your roof to flow down into a safe location where it cannot be a problem to your home’s exterior walls and siding, nor to any landscape fixture. Sometimes, though, even sturdy downspouts may fail and cause the water to leak. Listed below are a couple of conditions where this can happen:

When too much debris has collected in your gutter and gets delivered through your downspout, they might get stuck in the elbow (the point where the tube angles away) or somewhere higher up. This might cause your downspout to give in to the sheer weight of rainwater or debris. Clogged downspouts might need professional technicians to take it apart and clean.

A loose downspout causes water damage to the areas near your gutter, since the runoff will no longer pass through the entirety of the tube. Check to see if the downspout opening is still firmly attached to the gutter; if some of the fasteners are missing, or if it otherwise seems about ready to come loose, call a professional and have it fixed immediately.

There is also the danger of water damage when the downspout is installed very close to the foundation of the house. In this case, the water will seep into the soil, and it may penetrate your basement or crawl space. Make sure your gutter downspouts drain at least six feet away from the foundation.

Gutter or No Gutter?

With the hassle that comes with having to clean gutters often, does it make sense for a home to have no gutters instead? After all, gutter or no gutter, rainwater has nowhere to go but down to the ground. On the contrary, unless your roof is designed to channel water safely to the ground, gutters are no less than a necessity in protecting the home from water damage. What are these design requirements, you say?

First, the overhang of the roof must extend to no less than six inches. The overhang is the part of the roof that extends beyond the exterior wall to protect critical foundations from water damage. You can have a longer overhang so that rainwater stays away from the insulation and other structural elements without the help of gutters. The system will be more effective with a concrete apron on sloping ground, which can direct rainwater that manages to get close to the exterior wall.

Steep roofs reiterate the need for gutters because of the volume of runoff flowing down, especially steep gable roofs. Excess runoff may make their way into the interior and deal some damage. To reduce the volume of runoff at a unit of time, go for a hip roof; with four panels instead of the gable’s two, the volume of runoff can be evenly distributed. Gutters, in general, aren’t exactly a requirement; but when it rains really hard, you may wish you installed one.

The Evolving Gutter Guard

Perforations are the simplest type of gutter guard homes use. The idea is to make the openings small enough to deny entry to large debris such as fallen leaves, but large enough to allow storm runoff to pass through, reducing the chances of a clogged downspout. Over time, however, gutter guard designs have evolved to novel heights, featuring a reduced probability of blocked gutter guards. Imagine all those leaves sitting there on top of the gutter guard, blocking the perforations.

In one design, the gutter guard completely covers the gutter; no perforations on top but instead a small opening at the bottom of the system. Unlike the basic design, the opening extends along the length of the gutter, which means no gaps in between the openings. This means more runoff entering the gutter and flowing to the ground. Tests have shown that this particular design, now available with a number of dealers, can handle more than 20 inches of rain every hour.

While gutter guards have grown more efficient over the past several years, regular gutter cleaning hasn’t gone out of style yet. Debris small enough to fit into the opening, usually 3/8 of an inch wide, can still make their way into the gutter. Gutter guards can reduce how often you’ll need to clean your gutter, but will not eliminate the need itself.