The Latest Technology Trends Concerning Rain Gutters

home service Rain Gutters

Rain gutters are important in any house and we know its importance mostly during rainy season. Well, most of us have faced the clogged rain gutters or the rusting rain gutters that have caused more damage than happiness to our houses. Anyhow with the advance in technology, rain gutters have considerably changed into being more rust-free and automatically unclogs whatever the situation or season is. Today, I am going to talk about the latest technology advancement that rain gutters have accomplished and helping homeowners to have a better summer and rainy season.

The newest, and in my opinion, best approach today on gutter protection act more as a filter that a cover. There is no diversion of the flow of rainwater away from the top of the gutter. Rather, the water is allowed to flow straight through the micro-mesh filter. Now simple gutter screens employ much of the same methodology and they have been around for years. Simple screens have never done a particularly good job of protecting gutters primarily because of the materials used and their design.

Being a price point item, they are usually made of plastic, which warps easily. Whether made of plastic or metal (as some are), their other deficiency has been that their design has had to allow for too large of holes in the screening to allow the water to flow through. The large hole size has also allowed much if the smaller tree debris to get through them, thus defeating the purpose of the screen in the first place. Much of the design issue comes back to the materials used – they simply could not maintain water permeability if the hole size were reduced.

Materials

Starting with the materials, the latest technology in gutter guards employ unique materials previously used in different industries and applications. From the bottom up, some have thick vinyl and others anodized aluminum channel frames. The vinyl offers flexibility and the aluminum offers the unique combination of strength and light weight. Additionally, the aluminum channel frames (as thick as.1 inch) are anodized to add corrosion resistance.

On top of their frames, these new gutter guards have a stainless-steel micro-mesh screen. There are various alloys used by different brands. One of the best appears to be Alloy 316 which is far superior to 302 or 304 alloys in that it is molybdenum-bearing austenitic stainless steel is much more resistant to corrosion and pitting. It also possesses other enhanced properties that provide higher creep, stress-to-rupture, and tensile strength.

worker installs the gutter system on the roof

Design

With the foundation set with sturdy materials, the next job in creating a better system was design. Elements for the homeowner to consider are how the micro-mesh attaches to the frame. Some systems with attach by crimping, others are sealed and yet others, both. Sometimes a system is only as good as its weakest link. Strong materials can be of no avail if there is a weak point of attachment.

Another critical design factor how a gutter guard system is designed to be installed. Some mesh guards employ a mounting that flat across the top of the gutter. While the benefit of this approach is increased invisibility from ground level, the flatter surface accumulates more debris. Others mounts at an angle matching or similar to the roof’s pitch, helping much more debris to naturally come off of the top of the system. Alternately, these will be more apparent from ground level.

While the filter concept can allow for the possible built up of debris on top of it, similar to the older gutter screen offers, one of the key differences appears to be the “slipperiness”, for lack of a better word, of the micro-mess. Being of a smooth metal and with openings so small that there are literally over a thousand per square inch, there is very little “grip” for debris to gain any traction on. Old style screens provided considerable grip for debris to get entangled with and stay put. With just a small amount of either angle or wind, most debris easily remove itself from micro-mesh systems.

Perspective

While this might be an unusual category to take into consideration when evaluating a product, it ends up being the most critical in this case. If you recall from the top of this article, no gutter protection system is 100% perfect. Yet that does not stop most gutter guard brands from claiming their product is just that – perfect.

Homeowners should always look for a more honest perspective. A responsible company should always be willing to acknowledge that there can be unusual roof designs causing more rain water flow that any gutter could be expected to reasonably handle or point out the rare location were a little debris might tend to stay around on top of the system longer than in other spots. The better the overall capabilities, the easier it should be to willingly point these out. Usually, but not always, so be sure to ask the hard questions.

Get the best rain gutter services from the best like ABC Seamless Rain Gutters. They install, repair, and maintain your gutters in South Florida.

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