These issues can cost you much more than the most expensive gutter leaf-protection products out there and make the house looking beaten up over time.  Clearly, the less need to access your roof the better.

(c) Safety: this issue with whom ever will be going up and down those ladders several hundred times a decade to clean out your gutters is substantial, since one accident would most likely cost more that these sort of options that should minimize the need to access your roof.

I've done my best to search the world over for the best and most cost efficient solutions to this problem. Below is what I have come up with so far.  I have yet to find a better solution to the debris plaguing gutter function than these products regardless of cost. But I'm always open to suggestions, so feel free to go to our 'Contact' web page and write to me about any ideas or other products I may not have had the chance to concider.

I've written another web page going over the comparisons and log term functional details of the most well known debris protection options out there.  Go to my 'Comparison' Page and read over these options in more detail.

I calculate these low maintenance options itemized on each bid with no pressure to take all or nothing. I would say less than 20% of our clients in the last decade had us install gutters without those options, since natural tree fall-out is such a huge issue in the Northwest here.  Even though I am just a small Gutter Contractor I've personally serviced over 2,300 houses with new gutters since 1992, so you see I do have a sizable amount of research information gathered to form z proper evaluations here.

Again, we are open to your input.

For a detailed No-clog Gutter comparison page
A lot more than just a check list
(click on these images below to go to that web page)

Above left is an actual aluminum LEAFGUARD® gutter cross section profile that I have to show clients the clear difference. The right image shows a more user-friendly leaf screen over my 20oz copper K-5 gutter for about the same cost. which would you rather have?

If you are not local to us and your local gutter contractors do not offer these options, you can get these parts through us.  Simply go to our 'Shipping' page to find out the cost and procedure

First line of defense is the leaf screens I install

The most common concern I get from most potential clients is:

They wont keep everything out of my gutters; like pine needles

This is true and I don't try to debate this detail. If a cover can keep out that sort of small debris that filter will also become clogged and not allow rain water in before long. I wish there were a perfect solution, but I have yet to see it at any cost. I link to dozens of company web site selling that sort of over priced snake oil on my Site Map page:

http://dmr-gutters.com/links.htm#Parts

This is why it is so important to have larger outlets, which LeafGuard® also hinges their warranty on. Many ask if they need a larger gutter. I remind them how if the outlet is still the same small size it will jam and fail just as quickly no matter how big the gutter is, so that would not make much difference.

Even more importantly is the heavy moss growth inside the gutter under any gutter cover. Nothing short of copper gutters will keep this from happening here in the NW. Most Homeowners never get a chance to see this much moss growth, because they are not able to leave the gutters alone for a decade. Here's what it looks like after just 7 years or so of trouble free service under these galvanized hinged screens I used through the 90's:

I have removed gutters on thousands of houses and I had never seen this sort of moss buildup before. These gutters I had installed 7 years prior were still draining. This demonstrates how he was truly able to leave his gutters alone since I had installed them. This client happen to see my rig driving around and called my cell# to ask how much I would charge to clean his gutters. I reminded him it wouldn't cost anything if they've failed to drain properly. He said they were still working fine, but imagined it was time to have them cleaned. I still cleaned them for free and took this photo.

How effective are just screens alone?

Our clients report that with just the screens alone they find the need to clear out their gutters 1/4th as often. The main benefit is how these will keep out the large debris that clog up the gutters quickly: large leaves, pine cones, branches, and toys. A screen with a smaller weave like window screen is too fine of a weave and will cause the rain water to cascade over the screen and out past over the edge of the gutter before long. Especially at the bottom of a valley.

To the right is a close-up photo of the type of leaf screens I've used since 1998 for use with aluminum or copper gutters with one of the screens shown about to be installed.

Copper screens: are 3X the cost and not very strong. Some time before 2008 they started making these screens with even thinner copper to -help keep costs down when copper had doubled in cost. My copper clients are expecting better than standard. Not less than standard quality and sturdiness. copper gutter screens will end up getting bent out of shape and even dislodged from the gutter within around the same time these stronger steel screens will rust, so they're hardly worth the $. Even though I can still get copper screens for clients getting copper gutters they have wisely opted for the more practical steel screens. I am still looking for a supplier for better copper screens or stainless steel, but so far they want way too much even w/o attachment hardware.

Stainless steel: would work, but they are more expensive than these copper screens, so it is to pricy for aluminum or even copper gutters.

Aluminum screens: are too fragile and too light, so they simply will not work. They get blown off in the wind, or cave into the gutter from piles of debris on them.

Steel screens: that I use are a strong product that has a black powder-bake coat over the expanded metal. Personally I hate steel, but screens do not have to hold water like a gutter does, so rust is much less an issue. This is the best products I have found at a reasonable cost.

Our Larger No-clog Outlets

Our standard DSP (downspout pipes) are a corrugated 2" X 3" size with rounded corners.  Most Gutter Contractors in this area install the smaller cheaper smooth square steel DSP, and they do not bother with the curved elbows made for them, which would help to reduce the risk of obstructions forming inside those DSP.

The larger 3" X 4" DSP (shown right) were designed for industrial applications, where huge roof area surfaces are an issue.  They will handle twice the volume as a standard 2" X 3" DSP, but the benefit for a house is being able to have a 2X larger outlet for the debris to be able to make the transition into the DSP  better.

A larger gutter with the same small outlet would not help at all. The size of the outlet makes a much greater difference by far. Making sure the gutters are sloped the right direction also helps more than a larger gutter would, but that part of a different topic.

This 3X4 DSP feature is what LeafGuard® hinges there no-clog warranty on.  Keep in mind how it only helps to use these 3X4 DSP for the sole reason of cutting a larger hole for the outlet in the gutter system.

The local LeafGuard® franchise buy their downspouts from the same suppliers we do, so I decided to offer the same sort of No-clog Warranty with our gutters and leaf screens at a fraction of the cost.  With these stronger leaf screens we install, they are easy to install, much less expensive, user friendly, and we can better afford to manage our warranty this way w/o having to charge you an arm-&-a-leg to defer the cost of that sort of replacement cost LeafGuard® would have to suffer when their gutter fills with moss!  That alone is very telling of their product.  It is not like their product is any more expensive to produce.  Some of their outrageous cost is for the expensive advertising they push, but the other half demonstrates the cost of the failure rate of their product, even with all the clever loop holes they have written into their guarantee.

I've written more about this issue at: http://dmr-gutters.com/lp.htm

Here's what we discovered with LeafGuard® gutter work that we had replaced. Do you see a difference between them? They should not have even bothered with such sloppy workmanship when the actual opening is no bigger than a 2X3 DSP. It seems this is what you really get for the cost of what we charge for copper gutters:

These larger commercial size downspout allows us to cut twice the size hole in the bottom of the gutter, making it much more likely that the debris will tip into the downspout and flush through.  Instead of the debris covering the outlet and creating a natural strainer in the gutter, which will decompose and turn to mud, so as to not allow rain water pass, causing the gutters to over-flow.  It only makes sense that you need the gutters to continue to drain, or there is little reason to have gutter to be on your house at all.

Placing a strainer up inside the gutter may help to keep your underground sewer pipes clear of this sort of debris, but they are death to gutters.  That is the exact opposite of installing the 3"x 4" downspouts.  Using the leaf-catchers instead (shown below) is a lot smarter, so you do not need to go up on the roof to clear out that smelly debris.

Right after we starting to offer this advantage, we would noticed our customers dissatisfaction of the look of those huge industrial size downspout coming down their siding.  Even if they did not say anything about it, we could see the look on their face.

LeafGuard® insists on using these double size downspouts all the way down the side of your house to the ground only so they can still charge 3X more for their over-kill DSP, like they do for the super high cost of their gutter system.  They insist on those larger DSP because even though their gutter is design with only a 1/4" opening for the rain water to get in, a good amount of small debris will still wick in with the rain water, so when their gutters do get cloggedwith pine needles and moss they often have to replace the whole gutter, since there is no way to open them to clear out the blockage.  That is unless it happens to be just a simple straight run, and they are able to remove the end-caps to blast out the gutter with a hose (see our comparison web page for more details).

Since we are not as greedy as the LeafGuard® franchises and have a much lower overhead wecan charge less than half their price. I figured out how we could use the same reducer (that funnels the downspout to fit in the storm drainpipes) up higher on the wall.  The large 3"x 4" downspout is not needed for the dead drop.  It is only needed to make the larger drain hole in the bottom floor of the gutter.  Our customers have clearly been more saticfied with our alternative, not to mention how it also reduces the cost dramatically.  We also are able to use a smaller Leaf-catcher on each downspout as well because of this.

In the last 15 years of doing most of our gutter jobs this way, we have had very little call back for clogged gutters.  We have had no call back for a clogged downspout.  The DMR Gutters system seems to be working quite well. You can contact us for contact info of our past clients. I post addresses on this web site, but I do not want to expose them to spammers with their personal contact info here on the web.

This option adds only $50 per outlet to the cost of a new aluminum gutter installation.  Or $75 to alter your existing gutters to these larger outlets.  We are not able to offer the same sort of No-clog Warranty with alterations of your old gutters, mainly since your old gutters would most likely not have been installed properly with a grade towards the outlets.  Proper installation is something we have rarely seen when removing old gutters.  Believe it or not, most Gutter Contractors do not have their installers use a level to check their installation as they go.

Other Types of the Larger Outlet I Install

How do we trust they work as well as you say?

That is a very good question. I feel strongly that you will be quite happy with the results. Of course we would say they are the greatest thing since sliced cheese. I do not think highly of salesmen either. One thing that is different here is that I am not just a salesman. I am still an active installer over the last 15+ years. I do not have any employees to do the grunt work. I am out there in the field in one of the worst areas in the country for lots of rain, which grows big healthy trees for lots of natural fallout debris on roofs. Gutters are not just an option here. They are required by building code.

The only negative feedback I have gotten is how there may be a little splattering of rain water hitting the debris left on the screen, but I figure that when it is raining hard enough to cause this issue, the ground all around it already getting a lot wetter from direct falling rain than a little splattering. I have made numerous alterations over the years to refine the design to solve any feedback and issues I have noticed. A closed unit that has a pull out basket may look nice, but it causes more problems than it solves; out of sight, out of mind. Before it gets serviced the debris has become packed over a foot up into the upper DS pipe.

It is certainly a challenge to design the perfect device that has the best possible balance between cost, function, looks, and longevity. Factors that would not naturally work in harmony with each other. I admit they will splatter a little outside the housing. If I were to make these catchers a lot wider and deeper they would work better and need less frequent servicing, but they would also look horrendous and cost a lot more as well. I recently switched to stronger stainless steel woven screen, from this copper expanded metal seen to the right I had used over the last decade.

I have seen several other faulty catcher designs. The best device would be one that was closed unit and would activate an incinerator when the debris reached a certain volume using the DS pipe as the exhaust flue, but that would be expensive and complicated to install with all the wiring and natural gas piping needed.

I was inspired to make these for our gutter clients. over the last decade and a half I have installed these on most of the gutter jobs I've done, as it is one of my most popular features I offer, and has more to do with the success of my gutter job sales than any other factor.

It has been a process of trial and error to refine it to this point over the last 15 years. I've found these Leaf-catchers that I make to be the best concept out there to date. How could I prove to you that I'm not simply biased towards our product?  Well for starts:

1. I do not have any custom machinery that I had tooled to mass produce these to make me stuck with this one design, like other companies.
2. I have to draw these out on the sheet metal one at a time from a template I made. I cut out each Leaf-catcher one at a time.
3. I could alter the template as easily as drawing a new diagram.
4. I've altered the template several times already, after testing each version out for several years each, and listening to my client's feedback.
5. I've been working with these since 1992, so it has been nearly 2 decade now of development and testing.

Why did you design these:

We have a lot of pine trees with small needles in the Northwest here that will for the most part get through the screens that we install over the gutters.  We would estimate a good 60 to 70% of the smaller debris still get trapped in the Leaf-catcher unit's screened basket.  We do not see how we could design one with a higher percentage without causing more problems than it helps.  It is angled to allow for the debris to fall out if it is neglected for too long.

At $50 to $65 each installed, they are quite the bargain compared to the $75 to $100 an hour a plumber will charge you to clear out your storm drain pipes. These seem to catch even the small debris pretty well, and still let the water pass. If the screen had smaller holes it would plug up quickly and fail to allow water to pass through. Larger holes would allow too much smaller debris to pass through, so this seems to be the best balance. 

How do we operate them?

With these downspout strainers we make, there is no hinge or removable screen to lift up and dump out the debris.  There is no moving parts.  We could make the screen basket removable with this current design, but we go to an extra effort to crimp the baskets into the housing, making them not removable on purpose.  If they were removable, the basket would inevitably get damaged and it would also scratch up the inside of the housing putting them back in place.

It has proven to be a simple task to reach in there with your fingers and extract the debris and simply toss it on the ground and wash your hands off just a few times a year.  Or if you want to make this more sanitary you can carry a small bucket and use rubber gloves.  That debris does not seem to get too nasty with smelly bacteria, as it often does when sitting for many months up in the gutter, since the moisture is not trapped under the debris.  It dries out and has not been nearly as unpleasant as removing decomposed debris out of the gutters.

How is the debris able to get down to these strainers?

That is a good question we hear often enough. Here is our understanding:

(a) As listed above how the gutters were installed will make a large difference as to how well this system will function. From our experience most installers do not bother to use level while installing new gutters, let alone angle them to have a slight grade towards the outlets, as we do on each job.
(b) Also, what kind of downspouts you have will make a large difference. In this area it seems that most gutter contractors are too cheap to buy the curved elbows for the downspouts.  They have their installers cut the straight downspout pipe and fold it to make these angles.  This is a terrible way to do it, causing frequent blockages and also makes for a noisy downspout.  we even see it done that way on the most expensive Street of Dreams show homes with copper gutters.  It is not even ignorance. All these contractors know they are cheating the client and it simply will fail.  The problem is that it is not required to offer more than a 1 year warranty on all construction, so they are able to get away with it.
(c) As stated above, the screens also help a lot to keep out the large debris, like the pine cones and branches, that will damn up and clog up a gutter quickly. Then in a heavy down pour there is a much greater chance of rinsing out the debris into the DS.
(d) The larger outlets also make a marked advantage to the function of the gutters. It is the exact opposite of placing a strainer up inside the gutters.  We have seen in many cases where the standard size outlets will jam up and cause a natural strainer in the gutter, where the debris decomposes turning to mud and not let water pass, so the gutter overflows.

We are not trying to say we have a perfect solution, or that we will not be making more improvements in the future. It is tricky to work all these different details together for the best possible advantage. We hope that we are fortunate enough to come across information and ideas to improve it that much further. We are always open to good ideas.

We have not seen a better device to handle this issue in an efficient manner at any price, let alone a reasonable price. We install them about hip height, so you do not have to bend over to clean it out.  These Leaf-catchers cost $50 each to be installed with your new aluminum downspouts, or $75 to be installed in your existing downspouts. A little more for copper of course.

If you are not local to us, you can still order these through this web site from our Shipping web page.  You will also find detailed instructions how best to install these Leaf-catchers on your place, or have a local contractor do it for you.

A little history of these Leaf-catcher units:

They were originally designed by a gent here in Portland Oregon several decades ago. He was a gutter contractor, and later retired. Then Gutterman's Supply copied his design. I was ordering 50 units at a time from them paying $3 extra per unit to have them use copper screens instead. They do not run a very professional operation there and I was having to wait over 3 month for them to get around to filling my order. I could not wait that long, so through my frustration I finally made up my own patterns and made some other improvements that I felt were needed.

The few installers who buy the LCs made by Gutterman's Supply will install them close to the ground, right in the underground drainage pipe for simplicity.  They also will not have a copper screen.  From what we have seen those screens are broken through within the first year or two.  The pounding of the water and debris is too much for those fragile screens. We have seen some with steel screens, but they will begin to rust within a few years.

We noticed this problem before we began to install them, so I made sure Gutterman's Supply did not use the aluminum screens for the LC's I ordered.

We feel we have the best design out there for this purpose.  Stay away from the plastic strainers, because the sun will ruin them in short order.  We also attach them to the wall with the better pipe cleats and stainless steel Philips screws, instead of the straps and nail like you most likely have on your house now.  This makes it easily removable and reposition for cleaning or painting behind the downspouts.

What to avoid:

There are not a lot of similar options out there, but above is one solution made by the makers of plastic gutter parts.  It was a good attempt, but as you see it still clogged and when it does work, it dumps gutter water and gunk on the head of people using the walk way under this contraption, and it's mounted too high up to reach in order to clear out the blockage. Not user-friendly.

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I just stopped in (7-19-04) to ask this little old lady if I could take these photos. She reports how she hates them and knows she needs new gutters.  Sadly, we were booked too far out and she went with another contractor that was ready to do the replacement the very next day, but all she got was lousy steel gutters she's now stuck with.

Special Rain-cups Outlet:
Rain-cups are used in leu of a regular downspout in an area where a straight gravity fall is possible. This outlet piece under the gutter helps to effectively funnel the rain water into the cups allowing for a larger outlet opening without restricting debris.

Go here for more detailed installation instructions and photos: http://dmr-gutters.com/rco.htm

This is the ultimate in a no-clog outlet design, but it is not an option I normally include in our bids, unless specifically asked for.   This was the finished product from the wishes of a customer in West Linn Oregon.  The customer had a 55 foot gutter, with a lot of pine trees above the roof.  He was fed up with the constant grief he would get from the constant debris filling the gutters.  He requested to have the gutter split in half and dump into a basin of some sort.  Knowing that what he described would look terrible, and we would have nothing  to attach the basin to, we came up with this one piece unit that is also part of the gutter it's self.  We covered the top of the basin under the eaves with a screening to keep the critters out, but we left it able to open in the case it ever needed cleaning.

It then goes into a 3"x 4" downspout pipe, which is twice the size of a normal downspout.  It cost this clients in West Linn an extra $450 over 10 years ago, instead of only $50 like the over size outlets we normally install, so it may not be for every one, and does look a bit extreme.

This is a custom aluminum catcher basin to catch the rain water from a different kind of narrow valley.  It was made from a straight 3' gutter.  Again, with each end mitered, instead of just slapping on a pair of end-caps.  It has a 3.5" x 4.5" funnel mounted in the bottom as the outlet, reducing into a standard size downspout going straight down the corner of the house.

The cost for this was calculated from the basic cost of the gutter needed to make this: $17.50 + the cost of mitering 3 corners: $120, + installing this funnel in the bottom: $50 = $187.50 total.

This is a custom aluminum catcher basin to catch the rain water from a narrow valley.  It was made from a short straight gutter, with each end mitered, instead of just slapping on a pair of end-caps.  We flattened the back side to make the bottom a bit wider and made a new higher back side.  It has a 3.5" x 4.5" funnel mounted in the bottom as the outlet, reducing into a standard size downspout.  There is a double 'A' offset elbow right under it to divert the rain water back to the downspout on the siding.