This winter has been great so far! My gutters have really appreciated it! Last year we were plagued with massive ice dams that had water dripping inside windows and into bedrooms. As a last ditch effort to deal with those dams last year I went out an bought a length of gutter heating cable and basically just thew it up on the roof. It actually worked. It cut through the ice and allowed all of the trapped water to drain out.
Over the summer I got up on the ladder and prepared that heating cable for the approaching winter. Completely disregarding the manual I ran the cable up a downspout and into the gutters where it sits to this day. The manual wants you to spread the cable out on the bottom of the roof line like this…
Sure, that’s ideal, but it uses a heck of a lot of cable, looks ugly, and appears to be overkill.
I’ve only had to plug my cable in once so far when we had snow the other day, and that was just as a precaution. Now it’s 50 degrees F outside and the cable is sitting idle. Love it.
A reader submitted the following information that seems especially helpful for those thinking about Leaf Filter. Allen is an installer in the Northeast United States. In his own words…
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I would like to share with others what I have learned about LeaFilter since becoming a dealer in 2006. Note, I am not going to claim to have installed an unrealistic amount of the product like others. But rest assured it is a fact that I have installed thousands of feet of the product on customer homes in the Northeast. When I discuss this product with my customers, I always attempt to point out both pros and cons that I have learned. I want them to make an educated decision before moving ahead with an installation. We do NOT pressure our customers.
So that being said, here are the facts. Once the LeafFilter has been installed and the stainless steel (Zela) screening becomes wet, it will catch the majority (99%) of the rain water. If you have valley areas on your home (where two roof fields join together making an inward angle) you will need to have the valley screen (different from the normal Zela screening) installed. The valley screen is able to handle more water flow which occurs in valley areas. If the installer does not use valley screen, then it is very likely you will experience water overflow. In some cases we have had to install diverters even when using the valley screen. So this is dependent on the size of the valley and roof pitch. I would NOT recommend LeafFilter for pitched metal roofs. Reason; the runoff is too fast for the screening to absorb water and I know this to be a fact.
A DIY alternative to Leaf Filter
When installed properly, LeafFilter will keep debris from collecting in the gutter. However, debris is likely to collect on top of the LeafFilter. This is what the product was designed to do. This is NOT a maintenance free product like some claim. Because LeaFilter sits directly on top of the gutter, at times it may act as a shelf for the debris. The higher the roof pitch, the more accumulation. LeafFilter was designed with a pitch so debris will in most cases eventually run off, but it may take time and several heavy rains to do so. You may need to spray or brush debris off in some areas. If it bothers you and you don’t want to wait for the debris to shed naturally, then you will need to clean it off. I have also had situations where mold and moss have grown on customer roofs and then onto the LeafFilter. The stainless steel screening will clog when this occurs. This is more likely to occur on areas that get no sun. I have had to clean the LeafFilter off with either a house cleaner such as Zep, Jomax or products similar to Clorox Cleaner with bleach. Usually we just have to spray, wait ten minutes, rinse off and the mold is gone. I always suggest having your home washed at least once a year and when doing so, wash off the LeaFilter and this will help deter dirt and mold growth.
Another issue I have ran into in the past. The stainless steel screening has a natural bend to it. The installer needs to insert the screen into the PVC base with the bend down. If not, then some rain water will likely roll over the screening. I learned this the hard way. When the screening is adhered to the PVC base, the installer must use GeoCel 2320 as specified by the manufacturer. This is one of the best construction adhesives on the market and does an excellent job at locking the screening into place. I have seen pictures online of screening coming away from the PVC base. All I can say is the installer must have used an inferior adhesive or not enough. In six years, we have had no issues in regards to the screening coming away from the base because we always use Geocel and a lot of it.
I give LeafFilter 4 out of 5 stars.
What else? When the installer screws the PVC base onto the front lip of the gutter, he must make sure not to attach the base too tightly. Being PVC, the material naturally expands and contracts depending on the season. The PVC base will appear to be wavy if not installed properly. There are reasons why this product should NOT be sold to do it yourselfers. The installer needs to know what he’s doing for a successful outcome. I have been installing gutters for 27 years. I can tell you there is no perfect gutter protection product on the market. I give LeafFilter 4 out of 5 stars. The PVC base will not last as long as aluminum because of stresses put on it by both cold and hot weather. Do not install this product in real cold weather. Reason; it will crack when being cut.
Well I hope you find this information helpful and good luck.
We woke up this morning to a strange burnt oily smell in the basement. Years ago we had some trouble with our oil fired water heater and this presented itself as the first possible explanation… though the smell didn’t seem quite right.
I checked the oil tank and saw that it was low. Hmmm… perhaps the heater was trying to fire but couldn’t draw oil. The gauge indicated 80 gallons in the tank. Seems strange that the heater would be having trouble with that much oil in there. Hmmm. My next thought was that the gauge was not functioning correctly. We called and arranged an oil delivery.
I assumed that hot showers were out of the question if the heater could not draw oil. I gave it a shot anyway and to my surprise everything functioned normally.
Later on I went out into the garage and found that the smell strangely seemed stronger out there. Oh! It’s the car, I thought. A few weeks ago we had a power steering fluid leak that was repaired. The power steering fluid was leaking again… in fact there was a puddle underneath the car. I got a flash light, popped the hood, and did a little inspection. Hmmm… the power steering fluid is full. And the fluid line looks fine. Ah ha! There’s the dripping. But wait, that just looks like water. I wiggled my hand down to the source of the dripping and got some on my fingers. It felt like water and smelled like nothing. Ugh… it’s just air conditioner condensation. No big deal. The power steering fluid is fine.
Okay, it must be the water heater. Another trip into the basement and I could smell the smell, but it strangely diminished near the water heater. Argh.
I went back out into the garage to throw out some trash and the smell hit me again. Okay fine, so where is it coming from? I bloodhounded my way around the garage. The smell is familiar and unpleasant. I KNOW that smell. Some sort of chemical that I use. I started picking up cans and bottles until… BOOM! I found it. A metal spray can of Bombadier lubricant had rusted through and the noxious liquid had completely leaked out.
That was a welcome surprise! Both the car and the water explanations would have costs $$$, but throwing out and cleaning up after a leaking lubricant can was easy and simple. It’s funny how my mind went to the big expensive problems and lingered on them. It surprised me that it took so long to narrow down and location the true source of the problem.
We have this gutter run that is about 40 feet long along one side of our home. Over the past few years it has developed a sag (probably due to ice dams) that cause it to fill up and overflow during heavy rains. And even when it’s not raining, water obviously sits up there stagnant.
I was worried about what it would cost to get this run re-graded. A guy came to look at it and said that it would be much simpler to simple add a new leader (downspout) at the low point. That totally made sense to me, so we gave him the green light to make it happen. It looks and works perfectly now.
Just one time, my wife and I attended one of those Time Share presentations in exchange for a free mini-cruise and hotel stay. That day was one I will never forget. The pressure to buy was immense, but we both kept saying NO. Throughout the day they passed us on from person to person. Each new person we met would lower the price by thousands of dollars!
At the beginning of the day the original price was somewhere around $25,000 and people were buying at that price. By the time we met with the last person after saying NO all day long, the price had dropped to around $6,000. I felt incredibly bad for those poor chumps who bought at the $25,000 level for the EXACT SAME PRODUCT.
Well, a reader submitted the following story about Leaf Filter that evokes that same feeling as my Time Share experience:
I had the Leaf Filter “Field Manager” over to give the demo, etc. I have 134 feet of gutters all straight, no turns. I was amused while watching him labor over 5 minutes with pencil and calculator arriving at a price. He came up with $4,225.00! The flyer had a coupon for $250, and he immediately threw in another $250 “senior discount.” It still seemed very high to me ($3,725), so I said that I couldn’t do it. He then came up with another tactic – mine was a small job, he could fit it on when the crew was down, but I had to be on alert for a “last minute call” to install. Now the price was $2,750!
He immediately got on the phone and called a crew manager, and arranged for an actual date – after having said that they would call me when time freed up(!). I signed a contract, which allowed for cancellation within three days.
Finally, I read these posts on the internet, called the 800 number. They told me that they could do nothing and that the Regional manager would have to call me. In the meantime I sent the contract back with CANCEL written over it (certified mail), as the field manager originally had said I could do.
The Regional manager finally called 5 days later. He expressed disappointment in my cancellation and then offered to do the job for $1,300! This must be indicative of how they lead customers into getting the highest inflationary price from them at first. Who really knows what a real price is?
What kind of company that claims they’re number one uses tactics lower than that of used car salesmen? This turned me off more than the false product claims.
Here are a couple of recent Home Owner reports about their experiences with Leaf Filter and their local installers. First up is Keith who is not having a good time with his recent Leaf Filter installation:
Courtesy of Leaf Filter
Keith writes:
(5/27/2011) – I had Leaf Filter installed a little less than a year ago (for what I consider a hefty price) after the sales person sold me on it. While they were installing it I saw them cutting pieces of ordinary insect screen in addition to the micro-screen that keeps the small grit out. He explained they put it at only the corners to deal with heavy water flow. OK, fair enough though a little slippery of the sales guy who took over an hour of my time demonstrating the stuff not to mention this limitation. Upon departing the installer remarks “don’t worry if it runs over – it takes awhile for the oil from the manufacturer to wear off the micro-screen”. Hmmm… sure enough at the corners where the water flows heaviest it shoots out like waterfalls – a year later! I have 6-inch gutters. This product is simply flawed and misrepresented by sales staff. Don’t believe what they say.
More recently, Keith continues his story:
(6/9/2011) – First, I left a post a in [May] 2011 explaining my bad experience with my Leaf Filter install – deceptive sales pitch, untruths spoken by the installer, still pours over the gutters one year later as if the gutters are not even there. [Strange that] I got a call from a somewhat perturbed dealer telling me to chill out and they would contact me soon. Two weeks later I have not heard a word and am sitting on my front porch during a shower enjoying the waterfalls eroding my landscaping. Thank you Leaf Filter for wasting $2200 of my money.
As is typical, we get a lot of poor reviews of gutter protection products. Angry people tend to write more than satisfied people. I’m sure that we can all understand that. It would be nice, however to get some detailed positive reviews of the various gutter protection products out there. Anybody?
You guys may know that I’m a fan of Do It Yourself gutter guards. A few years ago I posted about the success I’ve had with the American Plastics gutter guards that you can buy at Home Depot and other home stores. They aren’t perfect, but they are an incredibly economical solution to the comedy of the gutter guard contracting industry.
Here is a realistic review of the Do It Yourself gutter guard plastic mesh shields:
I installed this same DIY Depot guards on my gutters in CT. They install easily and work well…..well, in the summer.
After getting overflow due to gutter blockage the next spring, I climbed up to view the problem. Their lack of rigidity (thickness and strength) had allowed all of them to sag in the middle from snow and ice weight, and their width did not allow them to slip far enough under the shingles and some fell into the gutter at the shingle side. Also, those that had not collapsed had taken on a permanent bend allowing debris to collect in their centers, which like the gutter themselves, required cleaning out.
These would be super if you do not live in the northeast or anywhere snow and ice can accumulate on the eves. You don’t, the choice is to have something professionally installed, like one of the high rated micro-mesh systems, or find a way to prop up the DIY plastic ones so they don’t sag. Else, might as well get used to cleaning gutters every other year….or more ofter depending on how many trees are with reach of your roof.
I am also in CT and I pretty much agree with the general opinion. My gutter guards have not collapsed anywhere and they appear to be holding up fine. They do sag a bit in the center. Though I’ve noticed that this sag is enhanced when the guards are installed upside down, which is EXTREMELY easy to do. In fact, I installed the product upside down in a section of gutter, realized it, and left it that way on purpose… just to see what happens. That is the only section where I can see any significant sag.
Sure, some debris collects on top of the gutters, but it is much easier and quicker to clean this off than to dig into filled gutters and remove gobs of leaves, seeds, and twigs. I almost never clean anything and they seem to work fine.
And when the time comes to re-install, I’ll pay the $100 or $200 and do it myself in a couple of hours and be set for another 5 years.
Here in the NorthEast the weather has been wet while interspersed with bright sunny days. Perfect ant weather. I was outside the house two days ago doing various tasks when I started noticing all of the pavement ants on our walkways. Some people call these sugar ants. They are the very small ants that appear to favor sweet foods and liquids. They are the ones you will find swarming over a dropped ice cream cone on the sidewalk.
I decided to follow the ant trails and was amazed at the sheer number of ants I saw. I was alarmed, actually. I hadn’t sprayed since last year.
I retrieved my ant spray and walked around the perimeter of the house. In two distinct locations I found large trails of ants traveling up the gutter downspouts. I sprayed every ant I could see and anywhere I thought they were going or coming from.
It’s important to restrain yourself from ant obliteration long enough to observe them in order to gain valuable information. This is particularly difficult when you find the ants within your home. You want to watch and see where which way their food is traveling. You will see ants carrying food in only one direction… back towards the colony.
From the Outside: If they are carrying food away from your home (most likely), then you can safely wipe out the trail and feel pretty satisfied. If they are carrying food towards your home, then you need further investigation and potentially professional help. The last thing you want is to discover an ant colony in your walls. Yuck.
From the Inside: Ants inside your home will almost always be bring food OUT of your home to their colony somewhere in your yard. If you find ants inside your home, observe them! Follow the trail and find out where it leads! You will eventually find the point where the ants are entering and leaving your home and out into your yard.
At this point I typically do two things:
I use a product called Terro OUTSIDE my home. I place this stuff directly on the ant trail outside the house. The ants will no longer need to search for food in your home… they will choose to eat the Terro instead. The idea is that they will bring this back to their colony and destroy the whole thing. To use Terro you must be very patient.
After I see that the ants are going for the Terro, then I use normal ant spray inside the house to wipe them out. Basically what you are doing is cutting them off and offering them a different food supply. LEAVE THEM ALONE outside your home. This is the only way to destroy the colony. Let them eat the Terro and forget about them.
Let me know if you’ve got any other ant control suggestions.
Here’s a video we came across on YouTube where This Old House does a tiny review… overview… really of some unnamed gutter systems. I have a few problems with this video.
It sounds like they are all half asleep, especially the host.
Their “test” of the various systems is ridiculous at best.
They seem to be pushing gutter systems as the “obvious” choice.
But I suppose, what are you going to do in a 5 minute television segment? The only one of the bunch who doesn’t appear to be pandering is the woman. At least they mention the ridiculously steep price of these gutter systems. They didn’t bother mentioning the price of the Do It Yourself option (which is our pick!).
Seriously, with the DIY option you really only have to go up to clean the gutters once every 3 to 5 years… and the cleaning is simple. I’ve only ever found a thin layer of gravel-muck. Spending $4000 to $8000 for a gutter system that *might* work is just retarded. As many others have experienced, you might spend all that money and be worse off than when you started.
Reader J. Woodson offers some advice born of experience in the are of selecting a gutter guard system for your home. Here are his comments:
I would like to tell all consumers who are interested in purchasing gutter guards of any kind, that as someone who has installed gutters and guards for almost 20 years now that all guards can work very well if everything is perfect. But what people have to realize is that every house is different and there will always be some kind of maintenance.
You have to realize that when you are dealing with salesmen they are not the ones that will have to service them or deal with the customer face to face like the installer, so they will guarantee you the world so you will buy their product.
I have installed just about every guard there is, and as much as it pains me to say this there is no point in spending ten times as much as the gutters to protect them, even though the more expensive ones can work very well when installed correctly and with a little tweaking, as each house has its own problems, some of the more reasonable priced guards are just as effective. But they will ALL need some type of maintenance. There are no magic guards that stop all the leaves from either building up on the roof, or on top of guard, and handle torrential downpours. You can’t stop it all with [one particular product].
So just be sure you research the contractor you are using so if you do need service they are someone you can count on to be there. If you are using a product that has to go under your shingles and your roof is 20 years old that probably is not something you want to use. If you have a very steep roof with a lot of valleys you probably don’t want to use a guard that completely covers your gutter. A lot of these products say that they can be installed on any type of house, when that is not the case, some are better for different types of houses. Research, research, research, and save yourself a lot of headache and money.
January 24, 2012 12:25pm by Team | 
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