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Yep. That's me, about 50 feet up in the air (or at least it felt like it), trying to clean the gutters. Again. We had a lot of messy trees at that house, and the gutters filled up with them over and over.
When I was up there, I was tied in with a rope. Eventually I got a big ladder so I could do the work from the ladder instead of sitting on the roof. That orange ladder was expensive (I bought it before the gutter guards), but I was able to sell it later. It was better than the roof, but cleaning the gutters was still a job I had to keep doing.
I had to get one of these for stabilization too.
The LeafFilter pitch
I got a quote from LeafFilter, and they sent a salesman to our house. After sitting through a presentation that seemed like it went on forever, the quote was something like $10,000.
I said no. Then he magically got a call from his manager about a closeout sale, and it could be $6,500. I still said no. It came down to $4,500. I said no again.
Then I bought gutter guards on Amazon and put them up myself the next weekend, for a fraction of the cost.
What I bought
A-M aluminum gutter guards, 5 inch, in 50-foot boxes. I bought two boxes in the spring of 2021 and a third the next summer, so 150 feet in all.
Putting them up
I did it alone. Nothing about it needed a second person or a special tool.
- Corners were easy. The aluminum cuts easily. I think I used a pair of (dare I say it) kitchen scissors, but it may have been something a little beefier. Whatever I had on hand worked.
- The screws don't come in the box. I had to get them separately.
- I didn't screw in every piece. I screwed in just enough of them that they'd stay put. That way, if I ever needed to pull some off to clean underneath, it wouldn't be awful.
How they held up
Awesome, in snow and in rain. Maple seeds didn't get stuck in them, and I never had to clean them. That was the whole point.
And once I'm too old for ladders, I can still pay someone to clean them out for less than what LeafFilter wanted.
Should you do this?
It really depends on your trees. At that house we had a lot of messy trees, and the gutters were a constant problem, so the guards were absolutely worth it. At my current house we have gutters and they don't need much work, because there aren't a bunch of messy trees around. I wouldn't bother there.
If you've got the trees, a ladder and a weekend, I'd do this again. And if the price drops twice while the salesman is still in your house, that tells you something about the first number.
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