Water Drip Test: 6 Micro Mesh Gutter Guards Reviewed and Ranked

This article accompanies Episode 5 in the Ultimate Gutter Guard Challenge 2021.

What do you think the top 2 questions we are asked about gutter guards?

I won’t keep you in suspense. Here they are:

1. How well will [insert name here] gutter guards keep out leaves and debris from my gutters?
2. How well do they work in the rain?

I’m going to answer question #2, from a slightly different perspective and vantage point.

I’ll stand under the gutters and observe the leading edge, face and bottom of the gutters to determine how much water moves across the face and onto the bottom of the gutter before it drips to the ground.

There are so many variables that determine how well a gutter guard will perform when it rains, it’s a difficult question to answer unless I’m standing in front of or looking at a picture of your home.

Sometimes gutter guards do great in the rain, and other times, poorly. In an ideal world, every gutter guard would absorb every drop of water that falls from the sky, but that’s simply not possible in most environments.

Factors that determine how well a gutter guard will perform in the rain include the roof pitch and shape, how many levels your house has, and how and where upper gutters distribute water onto your roof and into your gutters.

For the purpose of this challenge, our environment is stable and predictable. It’s the north side of my garage. As you may have seen in our video series, Ultimate Gutter Guard Challenge 2021, we have installed 9 gutter guards in 12 individual gutters installed on the north and south side of my garage.

The garage roof is a 12/12 pitch. That means for every foot in towards the center of the garage, the garage roof rises 12 inches, hence 12/12. In layman’s terms, the garage roof is a 45-degree angle. You’d have to get a good running start to get to the peak of the roof without sliding off.

The gutters are positioned next to each other. The weather the day we conducted the test was a steady rain. It was hard enough to illustrate how well the systems worked, but it was by no means a downpour.

We’re testing 6 popular micro mesh gutter guards from MasterShield, LeafFilter, LeafSolution, Gutter Glove and more.

The criteria we were looking at for this challenge is how much of the water rolled over the top of the gutter guards, down the face of the gutter and onto the bottom of the gutter. As water transitions from the gutter guard surface or the front lip of the gutter onto the face of the gutter, it will bring with it whatever is in its grasps. That could be dirt and organic matter from the roof or sky; leaves, pine needles or anything else that will adhere to water. The more water that drips from the gutter guard surface onto the face of your gutters, the dirtier your gutters will become, and the more water you’ll see dripping from the underside of your gutters.

Believe it or not, water dripping from the bottom of gutters is a big concern we hear from homeowners. It drives some people nuts because if enough water drips from the base of their gutters, it can lead to dirt and mulch erosion. This is often identified by a channel across the ground and evidence of dirt and mulch spattered onto your foundation wall, brick, or siding.

Truth be told, this also happens with wide open gutters without gutter guards. Most homeowners don’t pay attention to water dripping from the bottom of their gutters until they’ve invested in gutter guards. Only then, after shelling out a decent sum of money for guards, does this issue become apparent and, generally, only then does it become a problem.

Here’s a bit more information about each system and how it performed during this challenge: