As we’ve said before gutter cleaning is one of the most important parts of winterizing your home so as to reduce costs for gutter repairs, water damage, and even siding or roof damage. With so much riding on a properly cleaned gutter system, many homeowners are asking whether they’d be better served by traditional gutters or newly installed gutter guards from companies like LeafGuard. With the chill of winter getting closer every day, there’s no better time than now to weigh your gutter options so here’s a quick comparison to help make sure that your home’s gutter system is in top condition through whatever winter throws at you this year.

Gutter Cleaning

Most homeowners across the country are advised to clean their home’s gutters on at least a basis of two times a year to ensure that debris like leaves, twigs, acorns, and spiderwebs don’t cause the gutter system to clog, crack, or tear and fall once the standing water that clogs cause, freezes at the first frost of winter. This service can be a hassle, however, requiring a fair amount of time on a ladder pulling a years worth of debris from the gutters all around your home and then flushing the downspouts and corners out with high pressure water to tackle any remaining clogs or reveal any unseen cracks or leaks.

Because of all these reasons many homeowners elect to have their home’s gutter cleaning services completed by professional gutter cleaning contractors who are trained and insured to make sure that the any issues which arise during the gutter cleaning will be taken care of promptly and safely. Typically homeowners can expect professionally performed gutter cleaning services to cost somewhere between $50 and $200 depending mostly on the scale of the gutter cleaning being requested, and the length of time since the gutters were last cleaned.

Gutter Covers and Gutter Guards

In recent years many companies have begun offering gutter protecting installations which are intended to prevent debris from entering your home gutter system in the first place. They offer to do this through a variety of different ways ranging from a layer of mesh at the top of the gutter to a newly installed cap or covering over the entire gutter system. These installations can easily reach prices as high as $3000 to $5000 on an average home. Some companies justify this price tag by offering reduced (sometimes even free) costs for service and cleaning calls while still others claim their product when installed will prevent any need for gutter cleaning in the future.

In the case of the second claim, there is an abundance of professionals and studies which disprove never needing cleaning again. In fact, an entirely new gutter cleaning service has emerged recently focused on the more costly and time consuming service required to clean gutters which have gutter covers already installed. For this reason, many home remodeling professionals are advising that gutter guards may help to reduce debris build up on a day-to-day basis but that it may actually create more problems in the long-term. For many homeowners this means that traditional gutter systems and traditional gutter cleaning is still the most reliable way to ensure functionality and safety moving forward.