Gutter guards don't mean 'never clean again' — debris just piles up somewhere else

Gutter guards work by covering the gutter's opening with a mesh or screen, and they're genuinely good at blocking whole leaves from falling in. What they don't stop is finer debris: pine needles, oak catkins, seed pods, and shingle granules are small and light enough to settle right on top of the mesh instead of washing through it.

Over time that debris mats together, especially if the guard sits flat instead of angled with the roof slope to let gravity and rain help shed it off. A matted guard can shed water over the front of the gutter during a heavy rain instead of letting it drain in — which looks like the guard failed, when really it's just doing what an ungoverned gutter does once it's clogged, just one layer up.

It's also a harder problem to spot. An open gutter packed with leaves is obvious from the ground; a guard with a thin mat of pine needles across the top looks fine from a ladder's-length away and often gets overlooked for a season or two longer than it should.