This guy? About gutter guards? Yep!
You don’t really expect major country stars like Tim McGraw to casually mention gutter guards in their interviews, so we were a bit surprised when McGraw actually used the comparison to talk about, of all things, parenting. McGraw was discussing raising his teenage daughters and had this to say about fatherhood:
“More than anything, I think you sort of act as a gutter guard. You just sort of stand there with your arms out and just sort of catch ’em if they start falling.”
Well, OK, so maybe Tim is a bit hazy on how gutter guards actually function. As a public service, we’ll explain how Gutter Helmet, our preferred gutter guard, works. Although we do admit, we’ve yet to rate it for teenage daughters.
How It Works
Gutter Helmet actually uses the physics of how water flows to keep water where it belongs, in your gutter, but to keep out leaves, sticks, and other miscellaneous objects from your gutters. Essentially, Gutter Helmet starts by continuing the slope of your roof, to get the advantage of gravity.
The metal on Gutter Helmet is carefully textured for two reasons: First, to increase the overall strength of the guard so that it can withstand even the worst of rainfall, snow storms, and the other attacks of the elements you generally expect your gutters to deal with. Secondly, it increases the surface tension of the water, which becomes important as we get to the edge.
Once you get to the edge, debris and other non-liquid items go over the side and onto the ground, where you’ll have to rake them up; sadly, no gutter protection can rake your lawn for you yet, although we’re sure somebody is working on that as we speak. But the water doesn’t, thanks to how water flows.
If you look closely at water flowing over an edge, you’ll notice that it doesn’t go right off. Instead, it’ll cling to the edge and drip down, especially if there’s only a little of it flowing over an edge at a time. It’s part of the reason why, if your gutters fail, you’ll start to see “tiger striping” under your eaves; the water goes over your roof edge and counter-intuitively flows a little bit under the edge before gravity takes hold and it drips down.
OK, so he’s a better musician than a gutter technician.
Gutter Helmet takes advantage of this, and the water flows through a narrow gap, down the nose-first design, and right into your gutter. Leaves, debris, animals, and, apparently, teenagers don’t, so your gutters stay clear and last longer.
Guttering vs. Parenting
So we actually suppose the analogy makes a kind of sense: A parent does their best to keep their children on the right track and to throw off any sort of debris they shouldn’t have stuck to them on the lawn. Admittedly the metaphor does fall apart since you don’t generally sluice your children to a place on your property with ideal drainage, but the sentiment is in the right place.
We can’t help you with your teenagers, but if you’d like to better protect your gutters, call Moonworks at 1-800-975-6666 about installing Gutter Helmet. It’ll make your gutters last longer, keep your home looking more beautiful, and give your kids something to do… namely, rake the leaves that don’t collect in your gutters.
Photo credits: ConcertTours, 1035 WEZL