Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Gutter Protection vs. Gutter Cleaning – Cost Analysis

This gutter guard has been undergoing testing for ten months. Do you see the problem? Spring debris, like these maple-tree helicopter seed pods, can overwhelm gutter guards, clog them and render them useless. Gutter guards MUST BE INSTALLED in the same plane as the slope of the roof so the debris doesn't collect as you see in this photo. Look at the illustration below.  Copyright 2018 Tim Carter

Originally Published: October 1999 - Revised April 2018

Important Author’s Note Update: Since this column was written, I 've discovered at least two other gutter guards that sport the micro-mesh filtration screen. Testing of these micro-mesh guards began early Spring of 2008. The results of the test are in! After 10-years of testing various types, a winner has been declared! Click for the gutter guard I installed on my house - Gutter Guard Test Results.


Gutter Cleaning or Gutter Guards? Which is a Better Choice?

Related Links

Gutter Covers 101

Ice Problems with Gutter Covers

Gutter Covers

Do Gutter Guards Work?

Here's a quick cross-section showing how the gutter guard - in green - is in the same plane as the roofing material. The drawing is not to scale. I used to make drawings like this sitting at customers' kitchen tables. Copyright 2018 Tim Carter

Cost Analysis for Gutter Cleaning

At a bare minimum, you need to clean gutters twice a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall.

Have you priced the cost of gutter covers on your house? They're very expensive, especially if you pay to have them installed. It's not uncommon to see prices about $20, or more, per linear foot. That can add up to thousands of dollars FAST.

Better Investment: Gutter Guards, Save Money or Invest in the Stock Market?

Let's say you get an estimate for $1,500 (75 feet at +/- $20 per foot) to have the gutter guards installed. Based upon my experimentation we already know that we will have to clean out the gutters at least twice every year. This is important for the sake of our calculations.

FREE Gutter-Cleaning Bids

CLICK HERE to get a FREE ESTIMATE from local companies to CLEAN your GUTTERS.

What do you think a roofer will charge to clean your gutters? I would think that - on average - a roofer could clean 200 feet in about an hour or so. My guess is that you could get this done for $125 or less. Odds are you will have this done two times a year. This means that the annual cost to clean gutters without gutter guards is $200 plus or minus.

Let's see what happens if you don't buy gutter guards.

What happens if you don't get gutter screens and invest your $1,500 in the stock market?

You may think the stock market is risky, but it's not if you invest in a somewhat conservative group of stocks. You should be able to average about five or seven percent per year.

Some years the market goes way up as it did just after the 2016 Presidential election. If you were invested before November 1, 2016, you saw at least a 50 percent rise in your investment by the time 2018 rolled around. That means you'd have $2,250 in money instead of your original $1,500.

Realize if you invest aggressively, it could be far more, but I don't recommend that.

For sake of our discussion we will forget about taxes and inflation.

You can see that you can afford to pay to have your gutters cleaned by others and still have your original money in your possession AND it's growing each year!

Free & Fast Bids

CLICK HERE for FREE & FAST BIDS from local companies that can install micromesh gutter guards.

Consider purchasing a micromesh product from Amazon.com and having your local handyman install them for you. CLICK the photo below for just one of the micromesh products I discovered on Amazon:

micromesh gutter guard

There are many micromesh gutter guard products. You can save LOTS of money putting them on yourself. CLICK HERE or THE IMAGE to see how low-cost they can be.

Purchasing Gutter Guards - Get the Right Ones Or Else!

If you purchase the gutter guards, you have to spend $1,500.00.

It's important to realize if you get the WRONG ones, you'll have to pay a company to clean them out each year or every other year.

Now you're really in trouble if this happens.

The Actual Comparison - Gutter Cleaning Wins In the Short Game

If you don't buy gutter covers and have a roofer come to clean your gutters twice a year, the worst that will happen is that at the end of five years you will still have spent $1,000.00. But, you've been making money with your invested $1,500.00.

How much? I can't tell you because I can't foresee the future, but all past history shows you'll MAKE MONEY each year long term in the stock market.

I think you should get gutter cleaning AND GUTTER GUARD estimates. CLICK the following two links. The first one is for FREE gutter-cleaning bids. The second one allows you to calculate the cost of the gutter guards. The third link allows you to get an estimate from a local contractor who will install the gutter guards you purchased online:

CLICK HERE to get a FREE ESTIMATE from local companies to CLEAN your GUTTERS.

CLICK HERE to get the pricing for the micro mesh gutter guards from Amazon.

CLICK HERE for FREE & FAST BIDS from local companies that can install micromesh gutter guards.

Run the numbers and see if it doesn't make better sense to hold onto your money.

Column B184

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