Owning a home is like the official steppingstone towards true adulthood. The sense of fulfillment knowing that YOU are the owner and caretaker and that you make the rules instills real pride. However, as with most things in life, owning a home comes with responsibilities to make sure they stay in tip-top shape. One of these is protecting your home from water damage and the most common way is with gutters.
They do a good job of directing high amounts of water in a safe direction away from your property, but boy they are a pain in the butt to clean! Sadly, the biggest drawback of gutters is that they get clogged so easily by leaves and debris, defeating the purpose of having gutters in the first place. Luckily there is a solution and that is gutter guards!
Gutter guards are filters that work in the same way as coffee filters, they block unwanted debris from getting into the canal and allow water to run smoothly through. Now if you want to reduce the number of times you have to perform gutter maintenance,
then there are a few options that can work for you, each with its level of efficiency.
- Screen gutter guards
- Mesh gutter guards
While mesh guards are also easy to install, they stand apart from screen guards in the fact that they are designed to block very small debris like seeds and they come with different versions depending on what you need.
- Reverse curve gutter guards
Lastly, this option has a unique and innovative design. Instead of being a mesh or screen protector, the reverse curve guard is designed so that water rolls over and seeps into the canal while debris slides right off and onto the ground! Now gutter guards are not a perfect solution as some debris does tend to slip through from time to time but they do reduce the number of times per year that you have to clean them out, especially during the fall season as leaves constantly fall into the gutter canal. You still have to do maintenance just not as much. But are they worth the investment? That depends on you, if you are the type of person who regularly dedicates time every few weeks to make sure your gutters are clean and clear, then gutter guards would be unnecessary as you are already doing the job they are designed for, this way you save some money on your budget. On the other hand, if you are willing to spend the extra cash so that you don’t have to spend the extra time on maintenance then they are a great option because most of us have our schedules filled with so many other things that we have to compromise somewhere.
These are the most recommended as they are easy to install, very convenient, and cost-effective when it comes to maintenance.
Either way, it is important that as homeowners we dedicate some time regularly to making sure our house is in working order to avoid bigger issues later. If you are looking to get some home amenities to make your life easier, please do your research before you make a decision. It will save you a lot of time, money, and headaches. Also if you’d like to know more about gutter guards and if they are right for you then check out this article from Money.com which provided the information for this post!
