Every gutter guard on the market is sold as maintenance-free. None of them are. Some are genuinely worth it, and the difference depends on what is growing over your roof.
Gutter guards reduce cleaning. They do not eliminate it, and any company telling you otherwise is selling rather than advising. What they genuinely do is stop the trough from packing solid with leaves, which is what causes overflow, ice damming at the eave and water against your foundation.
What is over your roof matters
Maple. Large leaves that sit on top of a guard and mostly blow off. Guards work well here, and southwestern Ontario has a lot of maple.
Pine and spruce. Needles are the hard case. They thread through mesh apertures that stop leaves, so the guard has to be fine enough to shed them without shedding water too.
Oak. Leaves plus tassels in spring. Tassels are small, fibrous and get into everything.
Nothing overhanging. Then you may not need guards at all, and we will say so.
Fitted to the trough you have
Guards can go onto existing eavestrough if it is sound and properly pitched. If your trough is already sagging, leaking at the joints or undersized, a guard just hides those problems. We will look at the trough first and tell you whether it is worth guarding or worth replacing.
Winter
A guard does not prevent ice dams. Ice dams come from heat escaping into the attic, and the fix for those is ventilation and insulation rather than anything bolted to the eavestrough. What a guard does help with is stopping a trough full of wet leaves from freezing into a solid block of ice and pulling itself off the fascia.
How we work
Built for an Ontario winter
Everything we hang on the outside of a house has to survive roughly a hundred freeze-thaw cycles a year. That changes the details.
We look behind it first. On any tear-off we open a section and tell you what the wall is actually doing before quoting the whole job.
Room to move. Vinyl expands and contracts a long way between February and August. Fastened tight, it buckles and splits. We hang it.
Water gets out. House wrap lapped so it drains, flashing that sheds outward, kickouts where a roof meets a wall.
One trade, one edge. Siding, soffit, fascia and eavestrough all meet at the same line. Doing them together is how that line ends up straight.
Every photo is a Cave-Men job in southwestern Ontario. Tap any one to see it full size.
Questions
Gutter Guards FAQ
Do gutter guards actually work?
They reduce cleaning substantially. They do not eliminate it, and we would rather say that up front than have you find out in year two. How well they work depends a lot on whether you have maples or conifers overhead.
Will guards stop ice dams?
No. Ice dams are an attic ventilation and insulation problem, not an eavestrough problem. What guards do help with is stopping a leaf-packed trough freezing solid and tearing off the fascia.
Can you fit guards to my existing eavestrough?
If it is sound and properly pitched, yes. If it is sagging, leaking or undersized, a guard just hides that. We will assess the trough first and tell you honestly which situation you are in.
