<p>My son’s home needs new gutters which we knew when we bought the house. It also will need a new roof in a couple of years. The home is a small Cape Cod, that should only need gutters across the front and the back. The back is under a heavy wooded area, so a gutter that can handle the leaves and pine needles would be best.</p>
<p>I had thought about going with the fancy Gutter Helmet or Leaf Guard, but I am not sure they are really the answer. The reviews are either a love or hate situation. The home is in the south so I do not need to worry about ice accumulation, but I really have trouble understanding how these gutters can catch enough rain. There is still an opening in the fancy gutters, so how do you get the debris out? I have read about seeds sprouting within the gutters!</p>
<p>I have cheap screens over my gutters and they are not the best, but I do try to have them cleaned out twice a year. I guess any gutter that is well fitted will do the job, so why spend the money on the fancy ones?</p>
<p>Am I better replacing the roof at the same time as the gutters? I thought maybe I would get a better fit if they were done together, although I would rather wait on the roof for 2 years and get the gutters done now.</p>
<p>I would have the roof and gutters done at the same time. Not only are you probably going to get better pricing for a “package” of the two but, in addition, when a new roof is put on, the gutters will probably need to be removed as part of the roof installation, particularly if the new roof is going to be a tear off of the old shingles (let alone if the old roof decking needs to be replaced). In the life span of a roof, 2 years is a short time, so if you know you will need one in “2 years”, why wait if you must do the gutters now anyway.</p>
<p>We live in a fairly wooded area, lots of leaves and pine needles. When we replaced our gutters, we made sure to use 4" gutters and down spouts, not the smaller 3.5" ones often seen on homes. The larger size allows more debris to pass. Also, try to avoid tight bends. As to the “fancy” ( and expensive) gutter systems with some type of debris catcher, we elected, instead, to just put on inexpensive screens that clip to the gutters. Once or twice a year we simply scoop any debris off the screens. With a cap cod, this shouldn’t be much of an issue. Much more cost effective than the expensive integrated systems, most of which don’t work well anyway.</p>
<p>The cost of the fancy gutter guard that we got quoted on our previous home was almost as much as the gutters themselves. This would work out to many years of paid annual gutter cleanings for that house, so it did not seem worth it. We had the roof and gutters done at once. I heard a couple of different things re the order of replacing the roof and gutters if they were done separately, and it seemed to me that the best result would be to do all at once and not hear that the previous job somehow complicated the second job. Also if painting is intended or needed I thing it went roof, paint and then gutters on the project. Our gutters needed caulking to keep them going until we did the roof and gutters, but this was not a major expense.</p>