I work on ladders often so I have experience with gutter guards. Anything made out of plastic will fail. They will get crushed sooner or later by the weight of snow or warped by the heat of the sun. Gutter topper is a huge waste of money in my opinion as the gutters will often not collect the rain water or snow melt. The only gutter guards that I've seen that work and I'm not sure of the name but they are made out of steel mesh and coated with black plastic. They are only suitable with 5 inch gutters and asphalt composition roofs. In some situations they will not fit properly. Also, in general, the trees in the area need to have large leaves that will blow away and they work best if the trees are not hanging over the house. Gutters still often need to be cleaned and it can be a real headache with guards installed. Gutter guards of any type can also lead to problems such as getting water sliding behind the gutters because debris builds up between the roof and guard. This can lead to damaged soffit or fascia which are expensive repairs.

I used the Home Depot type that handymac describes for many years--they worked fine. I rarely had to go up and do any cleaning--when I did, it was so easy. I had one side tucked under the shingles, and the other side clipped to the edge of the gutter. Before that I had the similar type but without the extra mesh, and those allowed the locust leaves, maple flowers and maple seeds in. When I got new gutters I unfortunately got permanent gutter covers--don't know a brand name, flat perforated metal. The holes are small, and don't seem to let anything through, but because they sit flat on the gutter (actually tilt down slightly toward the wall) debris piles up and packs under the shingle overhang, so I have to climb up twice a year to clean it even though nothing is actually in the gutter itself. I had ice dams for the first time, too, after these were installed. Of course the guy who nstalled them won't return my calls about his "guarantee" that I wouldn't have to clean.

We put up the same thing as Handymac. After finding out the prices of the ones installed, we decided it would be cheaper to HIRE someone to come out twice a year to clean them. Money wise we would still be ahead. Originally just did our experiment over the section that runs over the garage. Tried the foam inserts but they seemed to catch a lot of the small maple spinners and fir needles. However, there is someone in our neighborhood that does have the foam ones and seems to be satisfied. Then someone suggested that they had actually had someone install the ones mentioned by Handymac. After testing, they seemed to work fine so we went ahead and did the whole house. There are a lot of angles and different runs so it took a lot of boxes. This will be the second winter. They seem to be working fine. Since we have put on the guards we haven't really had much snow or really hot weather. I think the central air has probably been on for a total of a week this year. We have only had snow for a couple days last year. Because of the elevation we do have more wind and snow than the metro area in general. The reason I'm stating that is because they are plastic they are probably not going to last as long as say the commercial micro metal variety that is available. The contractor that put some up for a friend also used the white ones. His reasoning is they would last longer in the sun. However, we did put up the dark ones. Also don't have any idea how they would hold up if you have large loads of snow/ice on your home. I do notice the extra leaves that are now on the ground that used to be caught by the gutters.

I did lots of research on gutter guards during DS's latest remodel. I think what you go with, if anything, is determined by the number and type of trees in your area, the amount of rain, wind, snow and ice you have thruout the year, the type roof you have, and how often the gutters need cleaning. In DS's case, the gutters would only need checking every 2 years. I talked with several gutter installers and most were willing so sell us whatever we wanted, but they also honestly shared the 'problems' with several of the systems. With hard downpours the overshoot is definitely a problem and if large leaves stick to the top surface of guards, they just add to the problem! If there are small holes in the cover, twigs and seeds tend to get caught and then sprout. And, as you've mentioned, some types of installation can compromise the roof. GutterStuff is used a good bit in our area and is more economical than some of the other designs, but we still worried about the foam catching debris & seeds. After figuring overall costs vs what he would pay someone to clean the gutters, DS decided not to install any type of gutterguards. Here is a link that might be useful: gutterstuff