Anyone up here have any experience with gutter guards? I have found at least 6 different brands on the market listed as "The Absolute Best" - some affordable, and others that cost over $7.00/LF, but none will commit to guarantee that they will work up here in pine needle country

If anyone has any that can deal with Pine Needles, let me know. I would love to find out where they are avaible

I have wasted money on some on a house down in Denver. They didn't work -from the beginning, even on leaves - but they had a lifetime satisfaction guarantee, however, after squabbling for over a year with the Mfgr, they finally decided they were not installed properlly - even though they installed them, and insisted that they had been removed and replaced incorrectly! I sued them and they immediately went out of business. Bummer. At least they won't con anyone else!

I'm not really interested in spending any more money on stuff that doesn't work and will need to look at something that someone has on their house and that can tell me for sure that they work

There is gotta be something out there that works that doesn't require me to go out and mortgage the dog to pay for them..........

if you have pine trees close enough to your house to cause problems with your gutters, I would strongly suggest you think about getting them cut down. You don't want pine trees close to the house- they go up like matches. Aspens, on the other hand, rarely burn and are considered good fire breaks.

just my 2 cents

ang

I now use something I found online and it's very cheap. It's made of a hard green plastic mesh and sits right over the downspout. It's shaped like a wedge and stops the needles but the water can still rise up over the needles and get in the top of the box. I still have to clean my gutters manually but this works well enough for me. Sorry but offhand I don't know what they were called or the manufacturer.

I don't care what kinda gutter guard ya use , tha gutters need a good washout twice a yr fer tha granules from tha shingles , it leaves a sediment in ther that stays damp and rusts out gutters ,.

The gutters that have trees close to them for some odd reason, are no problem Re: pine needles: If the problem was there, I wouldn't care as they are all low and easy to clean.

It's the 2 1/2 story tall (24' up) on the oppesite side of the house - where there are no close pine trees - that are the problem.

As for the gutter to downspout screen traps, I have used these on some other buildings, but our problem here is needles in the gutters rather than the downspout outlet opening in the gutter ends

Granules are not an issue. We have never had any granule loss from our shingles, and the side that collects the most water (the gutter that serves the largest roof area) has never been cleaned since we have been here (6 years) Granule loss is more commonly a sympton of shingles that are nearing the end of their servive life, and in our case, even if the shingles were shedding granules, our gutters are aluminum and won't rust.

Our most common non-needle issue, is dirt that accumulates only in the lower gutters that has to be flushed out once a year or so. Go Figure

I think most of our odd needle/dirt issues must be related to wind patterns around the building.

Owming a home is so much fun!

Try not using gutters first. If no problems occur, you just saved a bunch of $$.

As long as the water doesn't collect around the foundation, this is the answer. We only have gutters at entrances and over the driveway so there's less ice.