A changing of the guard. Any gutter guards that don't suck?

In reply to STM317 : here are my gutters going underground the picture below is the exit  

With a heavily treed lot - I spend a lot of time on my roof with a leaf blower.  Gutter guards have been a Google search topic of interest for me over the last couple years.

Not coincidentally- I recently saw an ad on Instagram for gutter covers with "free install". That seemed attractive so I invited them out for a quote... and it was $19k. To my surprise their "system" required all new gutters too. I excused the salesman from my property after telling him my magic number was $2,500 (and that seemed like a lot to me, for a 1,700sf ranch).

So this summer I decided to attack the problem in a different way - Splitting the cost of removing a 42" diameter 100' oak tree with the neighbor who has a buddy in the tree business. So far this fall I have far fewer leaves. Ironic isn't it?

In reply to OHSCrifle :

For much less than the $2500 you mentioned you could drop in  the foam gutter guards I used.   
 Check with Menards.  It takes very little time to drop them into place. ( and drop is all you do , nothing to screw or install )  

 On a typical ranch house a step ladder is all you'd need, you wouldn't be any higher than painting the top of the wall in your living room.Now a 4 legged ladder isn't the most stable ladder outside so I'd use an Orchard ladder.  It's  got 3 legs and feels rock sold even on I level ground.  The base is wider than a typical step ladder and doesn't give you that rocky feeling a step ladder does outside. 

 The run off from your roof flows right through the foam leaving leaves or anything on top of the foam  to be blown off by the wind.  

frenchyd said:

In reply to OHSCrifle :

For less than the $2500 you mentioned you could drop the foam gutter guards I used.   
 Check with Menards.  It takes very little time to drop them into place. ( and drop is all you do , nothing to screw or install ) 

 The run off from your roof flows right through the foam leaving leaves or anything on top of the foam  to be blown off by the wind.  

It was just an experiment but I placed some of those Brillo pad jobbers inside the gutters above my downspouts - approx 18" long pieces. The rest left open. They worked a little bit - The top of them still got plugged up. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

I looked on line for Gutter stuff and found them in K mart $46.xx for 4 feet  

I'll check Amazon  and Walmart.  Both Walmart  and Amazon are more expensive  KMart will ship them to you.