When you need to have roofing work done, or even to avoid having to have a tremendous amount of damage to your home, you need to do regular maintenance in order to keep the roof of your home in great shape. Why? This minimizes calls that you’ll need to make to a roofing contractor, and can also save you the headache from having damage to your home that is more difficult and costly to repair. In this guide, we’ll give you some roof maintenance tips straight from a roofing contractor.
When Buying a Home
Keep in mind that not everyone assesses the roof, but it should be done properly and before you close the sale or the purchase. You need to get a roof inspection before you actually buy the home (if you purchase the roof inspection, you can often work out something with the seller so they’ll take that off of the closing total price). This can keep you from having to get the roof repaired yourself, as well as make the current owner fix them in order to buy it from them. You’ll also have less to worry about should you want to sell the home later on.
Shave Down Those Trees
Even though you want to have a nice shady yard, you want to make sure that the branches aren’t always hanging out on your roof. If you can’t do it yourself, get a professional tree trimming company to trim them away from the roof, because trees can actually do a lot of damage to a roof just by scratching and puncturing your roofing.
Clean the Gutters Regularly
When you have standing gutters, more water will have to stay on your roof, and can end up getting into your attic, or even worse, your walls. But this all affects your roof because the moisture needs to evaporate to somewhere. The more standing water that’s on your roof, the worse shape it’s going to be in the long run as it weathers the shingles down to nothing in a matter of months.
Check for Shingle Damage Regularly
At least a few times per year, you want to see if there is any damage to your home. Every day, your roof is going to take small damage, and it can eventually wear them down and cause them to fade apart. Not only that, but just about every single time you have a really serious storm, you may want to check the shingles and roof for damage (even from ground level if necessary) shortly after the storm passes.
Conclusion
There are a lot of other things that you should do, from making sure the color of your roof is the same (sometimes algae and fungus can eat away from your roof if there’s a lot of moisture to make it spread), check the attic for water stains after heavy storms, and if necessary do the roof repair yourself (if you have the safety materials and tools to do it). You also need to make sure that your roof has proper insulation and ventilation to keep shingles and roof material from buckling and allowing moisture in.
