by Seth » Thu Feb 04, 2016 2:19 pm
My brother-in-law in Illinois has a house with the mesh screen gutter guards. They're relatively old, but in my mind, not worth the cost or effort. They're clogged up with fine bits of organic matter, and just cause the leaves and maple seeds to pile up on top. (I'll also never plant a silver maple tree near a house). Then, in areas where there's a small gap or break in the mesh, leaves and junk gets in and clogs up elsewhere, and you can't easily remove the mesh to clean it out. It's kind of the worst of both worlds.
I have 5" gutters and 3"x4" downspouts on our house, and they do a pretty good job of just letting leaves and junk flush out the downspouts. If you have the 2"x3" downspouts, they're going to clog a lot easier, and if a cheapo installer used the 2" round outlets in the gutters (I've seen this often on entry-level houses, even with rectangular downspouts), then they're pretty much guaranteed to clog.
My brother-in-law in Illinois has a house with the mesh screen gutter guards. They're relatively old, but in my mind, not worth the cost or effort. They're clogged up with fine bits of organic matter, and just cause the leaves and maple seeds to pile up on top. (I'll also never plant a silver maple tree near a house). Then, in areas where there's a small gap or break in the mesh, leaves and junk gets in and clogs up elsewhere, and you can't easily remove the mesh to clean it out. It's kind of the worst of both worlds.
I have 5" gutters and 3"x4" downspouts on our house, and they do a pretty good job of just letting leaves and junk flush out the downspouts. If you have the 2"x3" downspouts, they're going to clog a lot easier, and if a cheapo installer used the 2" round outlets in the gutters (I've seen this often on entry-level houses, even with rectangular downspouts), then they're pretty much guaranteed to clog.