Gutters

[GrnBay007]

I'm getting new gutters on my house. Would like to know if anyone has any experience, good or bad, with those leaf protector screen things they can put on. Do they work? ....are they worth an extra $400-$450 ? Got a very large pine tree in the front yard and the neighbor has some huge tree that generally fills my front yard with leaves.

....or is the best bet to stay old school and send my son up there to clean them twice a year?

[Joemailman]

I refuse to put gutters on my house so I won't have to clean them. Now that's old school.

[Little Whiskey]

put them on. I wouldn't go with the big fancy kind. i just have the screen type on the house. They work pretty well.

[Freak Out]

Gutters are good...skip the screen thing and make the kid clean them.

[MJZiggy]

My neighbor got the gutter thingies. They seem to work and she recommended them when I asked but my ex got cheap about it anyway and tried to do them himself.

[Patler]

I'm getting new gutters on my house. Would like to know if anyone has any experience, good or bad, with those leaf protector screen things they can put on. Do they work? ....are they worth an extra $400-$450 ? Got a very large pine tree in the front yard and the neighbor has some huge tree that generally fills my front yard with leaves.

....or is the best bet to stay old school and send my son up there to clean them twice a year?

I live among lots of trees; maples, oaks and pines. I had to clean my gutters 4 or 5 times a year. A while ago, I decided it was best that I not climb ladders as much as I did when I was younger. After viewing numerous different types at the Milwaukee home show, and doing my typical over researching of even the most mundane things, I decided to put on these:

http://mastershield.com/index.cfm

They are great! I couldn't be more satisfied.

[red]

if you get a lot of snow and ice then skip the covers. the snow melts a little, turns to ice, the ice packs up the covers, the ice continues to build up until there is too much weight, then you're picking up mangled covers off the ground and climbing a ladder back up to put them on again

despite that, i still love the idea behind them

[Patler]

if you get a lot of snow and ice then skip the covers. the snow melts a little, turns to ice, the ice packs up the covers, the ice continues to build up until there is too much weight, then you're picking up mangled covers off the ground and climbing a ladder back up to put them on again

despite that, i still love the idea behind them

That's one of the reasons I picked the ones I did. They have a deep flange fastened to the roof under the first row of shingle tabs, so as not to be "glaciered" off.

[red]

thats for that site patler, i've never seen that one before

looks decent

[Scott Campbell]

I live among lots of trees; maples, oaks and pines. I had to clean my gutters 4 or 5 times a year. A while ago, I decided it was best that I not climb ladders as much as I did when I was younger. After viewing numerous different types at the Milwaukee home show, and doing my typical over researching of even the most mundane things, I decided to put on these:

http://mastershield.com/index.cfm

They are great! I couldn't be more satisfied.

Too bad Max didn't have those.

[Patler]

Too bad Max didn't have those.

Actually, what happened to Max made me think about my own situation. My wife and kids heard how Max died, and brought it up to me as well. Sometimes it is hard to accept that we have gotten older and less capable, but Max's death made it easier for me on this issue. It took me a couple years to make up my mind about what I wanted, but I may have not even looked into it yet but for the death of Max McGee.

[Zool]

I live among lots of trees; maples, oaks and pines. I had to clean my gutters 4 or 5 times a year. A while ago, I decided it was best that I not climb ladders as much as I did when I was younger. After viewing numerous different types at the Milwaukee home show, and doing my typical over researching of even the most mundane things, I decided to put on these:

http://mastershield.com/index.cfm

They are great! I couldn't be more satisfied.

In a very heavy rainfall, are the holes large enough to let all the water through or do you get some direct flowing over the top?

[Patler]

In a very heavy rainfall, are the holes large enough to let all the water through or do you get some direct flowing over the top?

I have never had any overflow even in the heaviest rainfalls and even in areas of my roof that collect runoff from several slopes. My wife used to laugh at me, because the worse the storm was the more likely it would be that I would go out and walk around my house looking at the gutters!

As you can see, the top is not flat and is said to establish a siphoning effect to actually pull water through it. The heavier the flow, the faster the water goes through. I can't find the specs right now, but it is said to handle huge volumes. I saw video demonstrations with overflow tanks cascading a heavy fall of water onto a roof portion with it installed. Very impressive. All the water went through in the first couple "ripples" of the screen. None even reached the outer edge. The same heavy flows on the helmet type solid covers can break the surface adhesion needed to carry the water through the reverse curve into the gutter

I have worked in several industries that sell equipment for process screens and filters. I understand how surfaces that look very closed can actually pass large volumes through them, even in atmospheric systems that are not pressurized. This thing really seems to work that way. I tend to research things to death, and by the time I decided on these I had no hesitations about any other design being better. I'm not saying I am right, or that others won't work as well or maybe better, but I was convinced these were the ones for me.

My only hesitation was long term clogging. Over years and years, would areas of the filter become clogged? They claim no, that the heavy rainfalls actually serve to unclog the holes. The clincher for me was that if it ever does clog, they will come and clean it or replace it anyway, and the warranty is directly from the manufacturer, not the installer.

[MadtownPacker]

Ha! Even patler gets it from thewife. Proof he is mortal.

[Patler]

Ha! Even patler gets it from thewife. Proof he is mortal.

... or that she is!
(No, you may not tell Mrs. Patler that I wrote this!)