Ran into a retired roofer at the hardware store and he showed me why my gutters kept clogging

So I was at the ACE in Baton Rouge last Saturday picking up some PVC cement and this older guy just starts chatting me up at the gutter section. I mentioned how every spring I gotta climb up there and unclunk the same downspout and he asked if I had those leaf guards with the little holes. I said yeah and he just laughed. He told me those things are worthless because pine needles slide right through. He pointed me at those big foam inserts instead. 18 bucks for a pack of 6. I put em in Sunday and we just had that big storm roll through Wednesday. Downspout ran clear for the first time in like 3 years. Has anyone else ditched those metal guards for something simpler?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_simon1mo ago

Has anyone else noticed the foam inserts actually let the water flow faster too? I tried those metal guards first and they seemed to slow everything down, making the water pool on the roof before it even got to the gutter. The foam just soaks up the surge and lets it drain without that bottleneck effect, which is probably why your downspout stayed clear through that big storm.

seth_harris3611d ago

...and that's kind of the thing with most "upgrades" these days, isn't it? People overthink simple problems and end up making them worse. @shane_fisher37 nailed it with the pine needle thing too, metal guards just create a whole new surface for debris to stick to, like a welcome mat for leaves. Meanwhile foam does what foam does, it's porous and lets stuff pass through, same principle as why those old school spongey filters work better on a pond pump than the fancy mesh ones. It's like we keep trying to engineer our way around basic physics when sometimes the cheapest simplest option was the right one all along...

shane_fisher371mo ago

Honestly, I made that exact switch two years ago and never looked back. Those metal guards are a joke if you have any pine trees nearby, they just turn into a mat of needles on top. The foam inserts are way less hassle and I've only had to rinse mine out once since I put them in. Tbh, the only downside is making sure they're cut to fit snug so they don't pop out in heavy rain. But for 18 bucks, it's hard to beat.