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Our house is three years old and was fitted with whiskers when we bought it. Because the whiskers do not fully fill the spouting, leaves etc still get down between the whiskers and the spouting and get stuck there. They stay damp, then rot and you get sludge under the whiskers. Leaves are meant to sit on top but they don’t - great in theory but a total waste of time.
A year ago I ripped it all out and replaced it with gutter foam - which I installed myself. It’s important to get the correct profile (cross-section) of foam to match the profile of your guttering. If you get that right and instal it carefully, the foam fills the spouting closely and there’s nowhere for leaves to get stuck. They sit on top of the foam and when it stops raining, they dry off and blow away. Great in theory again - but this theory actually works.
These shots are from the website of the place where I bought the foam - not our house but ours looks just like this:
Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.
Mike
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So over the course of a week I have tried pretty much every gutter guard product available from Bunnings (lots of to-ing and fro-ing).
Whiskers/bristles: Pros: Quick and easy to install. Effective against leaves. Cons: Expensive. Ineffective against pohutukawa blossoms (and I suspect pine needles).
Clip on gutter guards: Pros: Cheapish. Cons: Fiddly to install. Likely requires quite a bit of cutting. Leaves black clips showing along gutters (who has black gutters!?).
Pre-formed mesh: Pros: Heavy duty. Quick and easy to install if you have external clips holding up your gutters. Cons: Expensive. Very fiddly to install if you have internal gutter clips.
Roll of bendable mesh (cheap, low quality stuff. My local Bunnings has $1 a roll stuff but that doesn't seem to be online). Pros: Very cheap. Will require cutting for internal gutter clips, but easy as the plastic is thin. Cons: Didn't stay fitted particularly well.
Roll of bendable mesh ("premium"). Pros: Cheap. Seems to stay fitted much better than cheap stuff. Cons: Still fiddly to install, just less fiddly than most others. I tried a couple of ways of installing this. First method 3 (which requires less cutting around the internal gutter clips) but had some pop outs at the rolled edge so shifted to method 2:
This last option is what I have gone with for most of the gutters.
Had a look at the foam stuff online. I suspect this would be great if you have external gutter clips but another pain for internal clips.
As for most things, the effectiveness and ease of installation depends on your roofline and gutters, particularly how they are installed. I certainly found navigating the internal clips to be an annoyance to be negotiated around.
In hindsight, I might have been better off looking at a leaf/debris diverter system for the downpipes. That can perhaps wait for next summer...
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