Never Clean Your Gutters AgainGutter Guard Installation in Dallas Center, IA

Do gutter guards cause ice dams?

They do not cause them, and they do not prevent them either, and both halves of that get oversold. An ice dam forms when heat escaping through the roof melts snow higher up, the meltwater runs down to the cold overhang, and it refreezes there. The cause is the temperature difference, which is a question of attic insulation and ventilation, not of what is bolted to the gutter. What a guard changes is where the ice ends up. A solid hood gives ice a surface to build on and can hold a sheet of it over the gutter. An open mesh lets some meltwater through and freezes with the gutter rather than over it. Neither situation makes the underlying problem worse in any meaningful way, and neither fixes it. If a house has a real ice dam problem, the money belongs in the attic. If it has occasional icicles like every other house in Iowa, the guard is not the variable that matters, and no one should sell it to you as if it were.