Hey, organicsue,

You are correct. The Leaf Relief is a great guard, but it leaves room for improvement.

Thanks for your response. Can you tell me, do you have the Leaf Relief installed? If you do, I would appreciate your opinion on a few things: first, overshoot - does it collect all the rain or do you have rain falling over the edge? Second, do the leaves and debris collect on top of the guard? Third, do you have ice damming? These three factors are the most important, and probably there is no one ideal solution, but I would love to hear your candid opinion. Thanks so much!

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

I just came across something completely new (for me anyway, I've never heard of this and it seems ingenious). It's called the Flip Clean Gutter System (www.flipcleanguttersystems.com) and all you do is take this telescoping stick with an attachment and flip the gutters upside down and all the debris falls out, then with the stick you just push it back into place. Has anyone heard of this? It seems the company is a family-operated business in Richmond Virginia, so I don't know if it is available nationwide, but if anyone knows about installation in the NYC area, please let me know.

That's pretty cool!

"The one thing about it, though, is that because it sits in the gutter, the outside gutter lip might prevent leaves and debris from blowing off. The Raingate system is very similar, just an aluminum strip with 9 rows of slots, but it seems to be flush with the gutter lip, not under it, so it has that one advantage over LeafRelief. Any thoughts?"

I had the same thought but according to the Alcoa website, the lip is there to prevent "overshoot" which I've read can happen with some gutter systems such as GutterHelmet. I paid for them to do a small section of my roof. I am going to see what happens.

I searched the web, couldn't find anything on RainGate. ??

How did the Guttershell http://www.guttershell.com/ ever work out? It looks like a good system probably expensive. I only paid $4 per foot for the Leaf Relief.

I am going to do a different section with GutterGlove http://www.gutterglove.com/ but that is $15 per ft for their best stuff and then compare the two of them.

Okay this is way late but after a winter with Leaf Relief installed on only one section of my house and a huge down pour yesterday, I gotta say this Leaf Relief is amazing! It was the only section of my gutters that didn't have water overflowing from all the rain. The little lip that sits on the outer edge must work to stop that overflow. The wind actually blows leafs and other debris off the top as advertised.

I am in the process of trying to find some more so my handyman can install it. I watched the guys install the 16ft section they put on, there is nothing to it, lift the shingles, insert edge and then screw the lip to the outer edge of the gutter and repeat. At $4.00 a foot, it's very hard to beat. I'll post some pics soon.

Does the Alcoa gutter guard stand up to a snow load