Gutter Guards · Waterloo

Gutter Guards in Waterloo

Guards are a good buy on a Beechwood lot under two maples and on a student house the owner visits twice a year. They are a poor buy on a Laurelwood two-storey with a sapling on the boulevard. The house decides, not the sale.

Guards are fitted after a full clean and any small repairs, to the eavestroughs already on the house. They are not pushed on every job; the first question is whether your house is one that benefits, and the second is which type survives what your trees drop.

Where guards pay in Waterloo

• Treed big lots. Beechwood, Lakeshore, Westmount and the older uptown streets, where a long roof under mature trees fills more than twice a year. Guards turn three cleans into one check within a few seasons.
• Rental houses. A Northdale or Columbia Street house whose owner is not there and whose tenants will not report an overflow. Guards buy time between visits and reduce the chance of the basement unit finding out first.
• A high or awkward run. A gable eave over a sloped bed, a window well or a deck. Guard that run, clean the rest normally.
• Troughs feeding a soakaway pit. The City's stormwater credit guidance itself recommends guards on gutters that drain to an infiltration gallery, so the pit does not silt up.

Where the money is better spent on a yearly visit

Laurelwood, Vista Hills, Columbia Forest and the rest of the west side built since the 1990s, plus any older house whose only big tree belongs to the neighbour across the road. On those houses a decade of short yearly visits costs less than a set of guards, and the crew will say that even though guards are the larger invoice.

Matching the guard to what falls on it

What your trees drop decides the product. Maple keys are flat and wedge into any opening the size of a pencil; spruce and cedar needles are thinner still and work their way through perforations; big oak and maple leaves are easy to keep out but mat on top of a flat guard and have to be brushed off.

• Fine stainless mesh on an aluminum frame is the only option that reliably stops keys and needles, and it is the costliest. It wants a once-a-year brush because pollen and shingle fines can glaze it.
• Punched aluminum handles broad-leaf fall well on the maple streets but lets keys and needles lodge in the holes; it is a compromise for a lot with mixed trees.
• Plastic or wire screen dropped into the trough is the cheap route. It stops whole leaves and nothing smaller, lifts in wind and under ice, and suits only a light-fall house.
• Foam blocks and bottle-brush inserts are not recommended on any Waterloo house. They stay wet, grow seedlings, freeze into a solid bar, and are the product the crew most often ends up hauling out of a trough.

What guards will not do

Stop an ice dam. A dam is made in the attic, where escaping heat melts roof snow that refreezes at the cold edge, and a guard can hide a bar of ice in the trough as easily as it hides leaves. If a ceiling has stained in February, insulation and air sealing in the attic are the conversation, and clean, free-draining eavestroughs are the supporting act.

The day of the install

Guards go on after the troughs have been cleaned and any small repairs made, because a guard over a sagging or weeping gutter is a guard over a problem. A typical house takes a day. Depending on the product the guard is screwed to the front lip of the trough and tucked under the first row of shingles without nailing through them, so the roof is left alone. The maintenance that follows is a yearly check and brush, and that is quoted alongside the guards so there is no surprise about what you have signed up for.

Frequently asked questions

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