On Sat 01 Aug 2009 09:15:06p, ShadowTek told us...

I have a 20 year old 5" aluminum gutter, and I'm trying to find a good
gutter gaurd to go with it, and it needs to be good enough to keep out
pine needles.

The first type I tried were these:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...isplay?storeId
=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100020939&N=10000003+9 0401

I bought 2 boxes of 25 panels at $43 each. After a mere *3 days*
the sun had caused them to warp, bow up, and come loose in places. Some
of them went from being straight to looking like damn wavy patato chip.
And this was only after *3 days*.

I wish that I had thought to take a picture of them. You'd get a good
laugh.

Fortunately, lazyness was on my side, as I had only bothered to use one
of the boxes, which was just enough to cover one side of the house. So,
I took the unused box back and asker her if there was any way I could
return the worthless crap that I had already wasted all day installing.
She said that I *could*, so I immediately returned home, yanked all that
crap off, and took it to get my money back. There was differenct person
there when I got back, but fortunately he didn't give me any crap about
it and accepted the return.

So, at least I didn't lose any money.

Then, I bought a piece of the solid stuff:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...isplay?storeId
=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100051459&N=10000003+9 0401

But I think a hard rain will likely result in water just running right
over that stuff. Also, you have to tuck this underneath the shingles,
and I'm concerned about water running back up under them, as the gaurd
lies almost level on top, since the outermost lip of the gaurd sticks up
so high.

They also had some metal mesh-like stuff, but I don't know if that'd be
effective against pine needles.
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...isplay?storeId
=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100012640&N=10000003+9 0401

What have your experiences been with these various products?


I haven't tried either of the first two. When we lived in NE Ohio, our
gutter guards were similar if not identical to the mesh type in picture #3.
We lived in a heavily wooded area that included both broadleaf and
evergreen trees. The guards were very effective. However, no matter what
you put on your gutters, the guards themselves require periodic cleaning.
In our case we generally cleaned them in late Fall after all the leaves had
fallen. In truth, there really wasn't much to clean up, but just making
sure that the guards didn't have an accumulcation of leaves.

--
Wayne Boatwright
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years
she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has
never been found. Calvin Trillin