I received an email this morning from a GutterBrush customer who has just recently purchased and installed the Gutterbrush simple brush gutter guard system, and was disappointed in the fact that he could see visible Maple Helicopter seeds or “Whirly Birds” on his GutterBrush. He was disappointed in the visible build up of the maple helicopter seeds and mainly concerned that he had purchased Gutterbrush and thought he might need maintenance soon. He went on to explain in his email, that he used to purchase the gutter foam in order to catch and filter the maple helicopter seeds, and then each season he would just throw the foam away and clean the gutter after every maple helicopter seed dropping season.
Below is my reply back to the customer. Thankfully, I have lots of gutter experience and had a very similar experience with GutterBrush and the Whirly Birds at my home here in Rhode Island, below is my emailed reply to this customer.
Whirly Birds and Maple Helicopter Seeds are killing Me and My Gutter
Thanks for sharing "The Whirly Birds are Killing Me".
I understand exactly your gutter guard disappointment, which is why I want to share my experience.
Years ago when I installed GutterBrush for the first time, I had 2 large maple trees adjacent to the front of my house. I filled the entire gutter with GutterBrush and noticed that the whirly birds or maple helicopters seeds were visibly getting stuck in the brush. From the first spring dropping, I just left them there in the brush. Yes they were visible but the gutters had no problem; they did not clog or overflow. The whirly birds fell before the end of May that year.
Individual Maple Helicopter Seeds Can’t Cause Gutter Clogging
I put my ladder up to take a look in late July, and all of the Whirlybirds had baked as if I put them in the oven and turned it on to 400 degrees. Due to the fact that the whirly birds are suspended in the brush, there is abundant air flow surrounding; they really bake. They are not laying on the bottom of the gutter, instead they are up in the sunlight with abundant airflow and they will really bake. I observed that the leaf part just disintegrated and the seed died.
I wanted to perform maintenance, but I also wanted to see how long I could go with fully flowing gutters, so I did not perform any maintenance.
Again, even though there were lots of whirly birds, the gutter didnt clog or flow over and they baked, decayed and flowed through the gutter system as particulate matter.
Here;s a video after 2.5 years at my house with no maintenance https://www.gutterbrush.com/pages/gutter-clog-protection-results-after-2-5-years
Then another year went by and the maple trees grew their roots into my sewer line so I cut the trees down, but there are other trees all around as you can see in the next video. I still did not maintain the gutter until shooting this video after 4 years.
Again, the gutters flowed perfectly for 4 years with no maintenance and each dropping season the helicopters would be visible and then they would go away.
Here's the video of performing maintenance after 4.2 years even though the gutters were still flowing. https://www.gutterbrush.com/pages/gutter-guard-cleaning
When it is time for maintenance you can eventually pull out all of the Gutterbrush and just bang it on a hard surface to get the whirly birds and gunk to drop out, clean the gutter and reinstall completely renewed.
I know you don't want to see the whirly-birds, but there's nothing any gutter guard can do to stop the visible buildup of debris on them. Even smooth surface covers get visible leaves and debris stuck to them.
I hope this helps!
Sincerely
GutterBrush