Whilst no roof can last forever, there are steps that you can take to extend your roof's lifespan. Here are two things that should help to keep it in excellent condition for many years to come.
Look after your gutters during the autumn and winter seasons
It's crucial to take good care of your guttering throughout the autumn and winter seasons. During the autumn months, guttering can become clogged up with leaves that have fallen from nearby trees, often to the point where the damp leaves begin to overflow onto the roof shingles.
This can create serious problems with your roof, as the water from the saturated leaves can seep through the shingles into the timber roof decking. This moisture can result in the decking developing an issue called wet rot, which, if left unrepaired for even a few weeks, could compromise the structural integrity of the entire roof system.
Similarly, during the winter months, it's quite common for the rainwater that pools in gutters to freeze and form an ice dam, which then hangs over the edge of the gutter pipe. If an ice dam snaps off, it can pull down both the guttering and any shingles it has become attached to.
As such, it's crucial to have new guttering installed and maintained to help keep your roof in better shape.
Invest in maintenance
A lot of homeowners make the mistaking of failing to have any routine maintenance work performed on their roofs. In many cases, this is done in order to save money.
However, it's important to realise that failing to have basic maintenance work carried out on your roof is likely to lead to some very costly repair bills in a few years' time. This is because minor problems that might have been easy to resolve when identified at an early stage can evolve into far more serious (and expensive) issues if they are left unfixed for long periods of time.
For instance, let's say that your metal roof develops a small patch of rust. If this is spotted when your roofer is performing some routine maintenance work, they should be able to fix the damage quite easily, simply by abrading the corroded area and adding a coat of protective paint to the affected part of the roof.
However, if this corrosion goes unnoticed for several months, it will start to spread, eating away at the roof until it is no longer structurally sound. In this situation, you could end up paying thousands of dollars to repair or replace the roof.
Share28 August 2017
Hello, my name is Ryan and this is my blog. I don't work in the roofing industry but I recently had to spend a week on the roof of my home trying to fix it up. I am pretty good at DIY, but in the end, I had to call in a roofing contractor to help me out. I decided to replace the entire roof and that wasn't a job I was going to take on my own. I have learnt a lot during the past few weeks and I hope to use this blog to pass on some of my knowledge.