Micro-mesh
Stainless woven screen in a frame. Stops everything down to shingle grit. Costs the most of the screen-type guards and lasts the longest. Needs an occasional rinse.
This is what we install, and it's what we'd put on our own houses.
Perforated and screen guard
Aluminum or plastic panels with holes or slots. They stop whole leaves and pass everything smaller. In a metro with this much maple and pine, that's most of the problem material.
Worse, needles wedge into the slots and mat, so the guard itself becomes the clog and it's harder to clean than a bare gutter.
Reverse-curve / helmet
A solid cover with a curved nose that uses surface tension to pull water around into a slot. Elegant on paper. In a hard St. Louis summer downpour the water overshoots the slot and goes off the front.
The slot also collects grit and small debris over time, and cleaning it means removing the cover.
Foam inserts
A wedge of open-cell foam pushed into the trough. Cheap, sold everywhere, and a mistake. Grit works into the foam, it stays saturated against the metal, and it grows things.
It also has to be pulled out to clean, at which point you've done more work than cleaning the gutter would have taken.
Brush
A giant pipe cleaner laid in the trough. Leaves rest on the bristles and stay, which means you're now cleaning a brush instead of a gutter.
Same category as foam: cheap, widely sold, not a solution.
Questions people ask
What's the best gutter guard for St. Louis?
Stainless micro-mesh. It's the only type that handles oak tassels, maple seeds and pine needles together.
Are foam gutter guards any good?
No. They hold moisture and grit against the gutter and have to be removed to clean.
Do reverse-curve guards work?
In moderate rain, mostly. In the hard downpours this metro gets several times a summer, water overshoots the slot.
Is screen guard better than nothing?
Marginally, and sometimes not at all — needles matted into a screen are harder to deal with than a bare trough.
Free estimate
We measure, we look at the fascia, and you get a number in writing.
Talk to a real St. Louis gutter company
Third generation, family-run since 1947. Somebody picks up, day or night.