Or, if you prefer paying someone like us to do it for you, what else could you be spending that money on?

Buy the right gutter guard and you can take your pick. There’s just one problem. Most gutter guards don’t work. There is, in fact, just one form of guard you can buy to reliably free yourself from the drudgery of gutter cleaning forever. Some gutter guards can even cause massive problems.

Types of Gutter Guards

You’ve got several types of gutter guards to choose from.

The first is a brush guard. It’s basically a thick, wire brush meant to slide right into your gutters. This is one of two “fill” types that people have tried to use to let water flow through the guards without allowing debris to accumulate. Unfortunately, debris wins this battle every time, getting in behind the brushes, around them, and between them. The result? Now you’ve got a mess of leaves and a bunch of soggy brushes in your gutters. Yuck.

Next, you can get various types of screens or perforated meshes. These install over your gutters. They really will block the biggest debris, so you do get a bit of help here. But they don’t block all of it. Pine needles and other small things will accumulate over time. Eventually you’ll have to get in there to clean it all out, and it will be an even bigger job than before because now you have to remove the gutter guard, then re-install it. This is nobody’s idea of a good time.

Various metal solutions which are engineered to block most of the debris while allowing water to flow through are similarly imperfect, especially here in Florida. Eventually driving winds are going to send stuff right under whatever “hat-type” solution you use. Again, now you’re faced with having to clean gutters after uninstalling the gutter-guard solution.

“Foam” type gutters seem like they should be a pretty great solution. Just slip foam into the gutters. Now you’ve blocked everything but water. Brilliant! And as a short-term solution this isn’t too bad. Unfortunately, the foam gets brittle and impermeable within a couple years. After awhile, this hard foam mess becomes the new stuff blocking your gutters. Now you have to pull it all and replace it.

We don’t install any of these solutions for our customers.

This is because the sixth solution is the only one that really solves these problems. Flo-Free leaf guards are a 3/4″ thick layer of permeable nylon that lasts for a lifetime. It curves over your gutter, fitting inside from top to bottom. It creates an unobstructed channel within the gutter without leaving any place for even the smallest of debris to get inside. This is industrial strength nylon that lasts basically forever, so you never have to pluck it back out again. In fact, pretty much the only thing you ever want to do to it is brushing the stuff off the top, as leaves can end up covering the surface. This is a much easier task than cleaning gutters every spring and fall.

Who Needs Flo-Free Leaf Guards No Matter What?

Some people will see Flo-Free leaf guards as more of a luxury purchase than a true necessity. For some homeowners we’d agree. This is a nice-to-have.

However, if you’re a homeowner with massive trees in your yard, trees which stretch over a significant percentage of your gutters? Flo-free guards might well be a need instead. Your trees are just constantly shedding stuff into your gutters, which means you might find yourself having to get them cleaned out once a month, not twice a year. Let it go even for a little while and you could start to see moisture accumulate on the walls of your home, or see any of the other problems associated with dirty gutters. If this is you, Flo-free guards are just smart.

Think you might need (or want) gutter guards that work? Contact us for a free quote today.