In Episode 1, we’re looking inside the gutters on my garage before the test began. As you’ll see, the gutters are old and in poor shape. More importantly, the gutters are full of leaves, pine needles and even tree saplings. Not 1 or two saplings, but many from seasons past.
I am sharing this with you to illustrate that the environment where this test is taking place is as tough as it gets. A combination of White Pine, Oak, Maple and Locust trees, mated with a 45-degree angle asphalt shingle roof, is an ideal setting to test the limits of the gutter guards.
You can refer to the article, LeafFilter and GutterGlove were top rated gutter guards, but how do they rank a decade later?, for more detail about the idea behind the test and what we’re hoping to accomplish.
To give you a brief background, we’ve selected 9 gutter guards to test for an entire year. The test began in March 2020, which gave us ample time to install the gutter guards before the onslaught of flowers, buds, helicopters and everything that falls from the trees in the spring.
We removed and replaced the old, banged up 5” gutters with new 6-inch pristine white gutters. Each 4-foot section of gutter has its own 4”x3” wide downspout. Each gutter guard will be fully isolated from the product next to it. By isolating the gutter guards, we’ll be better able to judge how the guards perform. When we remove the gutter guards at the end of the test, we’ll also be able to determine how much debris entered into the gutters, as we’ve added a mesh screen above the downspout openings that will capture and retain any substantially sized leaves and debris.
The first annual test includes a total of 9 gutter guards. Eight of the systems are micro mesh gutter guards and 1 is a solid gutter cover. We are testing the gutters on the north and south sides of the garage. This will offer two ecosystems within the same test. Naturally the south exposure gets more sun than the north side of the gutter, so we’re likely to see that the gutter guards will perform a bit differently from side-to-side.
We’re letting Mother Nature do all the work. There are plenty of trees surrounding and hovering over the garage that will truly challenge the gutter guards, so it’s an ideal test environment. The gutter guards will be untouched for the duration of the test. If the gutter guards become inundated with leaves and debris, snow and ice, we won’t wipe off the surface or disturb them in anyway. The objective is mimic how they would work at your house in your environment and report our findings.
Will one gutter guard take the early lead and fend-off the rest of the pack for the entire test?
Will we see several strong contenders throughout?
Or might they all fail?
One thing is for sure, we have no idea what to expect, and we’re just as excited as you are to see how the gutter guards perform during the next 12-months.
