Are Gutter Guards Worth It in Minnesota?

Gutter guards are worth it on some houses and close to a waste on others, and the honest version of the answer is that no guard ends gutter cleaning. A good one cuts how often you need it. On a tall house under oaks and maples that can be the difference between two visits a year and one. On a one story rambler with nothing hanging over the roof, you are paying to solve a problem you do not have.

What a guard actually does

A gutter guard is a lid. It covers the open top of the trough so debris lands on the guard instead of in the channel, water gets through, and most of the solid material either stays out or blows off. On a roof under big trees that works. Oak and maple leaves are broad, flat and light, and once they dry out they slide off a sloped cover on their own.

The trouble is everything smaller than a leaf. Shingle grit, pollen, pine needles, maple seeds, oak catkins and cottonwood fluff are all fine enough to drop through a coarse screen or to mat down on top of a fine one. What passes through still settles in the trough and packs the downspout elbows. What mats on top still has to come off, because water cannot get through a blinded screen any better than it can get into a full gutter.

The types, and where each one gives out

• Snap in plastic or vinyl screens. The cheap ones sold by the foot at the hardware store. The openings are large, so most small debris goes straight through, and cold makes thin vinyl brittle enough to crack or pop loose.
• Perforated aluminum covers. Tougher, and the holes are small enough to stop whole leaves. They can still blind over on the surface with grit and pollen.
• Micro mesh. The finest option and the best at keeping material out of the trough. The tradeoff is that the mesh itself is the filter, so it loads up on its face and needs brushing rather than scooping.
• Reverse curve, sometimes sold as a helmet. Water wraps around a nose and into a slot while leaves carry off the edge. They work, but a hard rain can overshoot the slot, and the cover has to come off to reach anything underneath.
• Foam and brush inserts. These sit down inside the trough instead of over it. Seeds and grit settle into them, they hold water, and things sprout in them. I would skip those.

What Minnesota does to them

Ice is the part left out of the sales pitch. Any guard is one more surface for meltwater to freeze onto at the roof edge, and a frozen guard is harder to clear than a frozen gutter. Snow sliding off a steep roof can take a snap in screen with it.

Spring is the other weak season here. Almost everything that falls in May and June is small. Maple seeds, catkins and cottonwood fluff either pass a coarse screen or lie on fine mesh like felt, which is why a guarded gutter still wants a look in early summer. Fall is where guards earn their keep in the Twin Cities. Spring is where they still need checking. There is more on the two seasons in our post on when to clean gutters in the Twin Cities.

A guard also changes nothing about ice dams. Those come from heat escaping through the roof, not from what is sitting in the gutter.

Questions worth answering before you buy

• Is it a gutter problem or a drainage problem? If water pours over the edge because a downspout elbow is packed or a buried drain line has collapsed, a lid on the trough fixes none of that.
• How many trees are actually over the roof? Count the ones with branches reaching the roof line, not the ones out in the yard.
• How tall is the house? Guards are worth the most where simply getting up there is the expensive and risky part of the job.
• Who maintains them? A guard is still maintenance, just less of it, and a cover that nobody ever brushes off ends up worse than no cover at all.

What I will and will not do

I clean gutters. I do not install gutter guards and I am not going to talk anybody into them. If you already have them, I will tell you straight whether they are doing their job on your house, and I will work under them, though taking a section off and putting it back makes the visit longer than a bare gutter.

What I would rather see first is clear downspouts and water actually leaving the house. That is what a cleaning is for, and what a proper one covers is in the post on what a gutter cleaning should include. Gleam Team cleans gutters starting at $120, backed by the Gleam Guarantee, in St. Paul, Minneapolis and the suburbs out to about 25 miles, and there is more on the gutter cleaning service if you want the details.

When you are ready, request a free quote or book a free 10 minute consultation.