Being one of the most important components of your home, maintaining your roof in good condition is paramount. You need to regularly maintain it for it to continue offering protection to your home and your personal items in the home.
Extensive destruction may be very expensive to repair, especially if it calls for a full replacement of the roofing system. Prevention of such destruction from occurring is therefore a huge step towards reducing your repair costs. Follow these tips to maintain your roof in a good condition.
1. Regular Inspections
You should inspect your ‘home’s cover’ on a regular basis in order to maintain it in a good condition. During these inspections, you will discover small hitches before they escalate into huge problems. You can also find out the smallest indications of damage. As a general rule of thumb, roofing inspections should be conducted every three years.
During routine inspections, you will get to replace missing shingles, fix leaks, control moss and algae build-up, paint the metal components, and clean your gutters.
2. Trim Trees Around Your Home
As you go about your routine inspection, look out for overhanging branches around your home. They can cause a lot of destruction, especially during winter and whenever the weather is windy or stormy.
Trimming can reduce the danger of branches falling off and causing damage. If the trees are not trimmed, leaves falling off their branches may collect moisture and cause rotting to occur. This can eventually weaken your roof and cause massive destruction.
If the trees are overgrowing, get in touch with a competent company and get to know what is the best solution for your situation.
3. Keep The Roof Clean
This structure protects your home from external elements, dirt inclusive. Be fair to it by making sure it is always clean as well. Roofs often get dirty because they are exposed to the environment. They collect dirt and leaves over time. If not regularly removed, the dirt may accumulate and become a nuisance. It also has the potential to cause destruction.
It is paramount that you keep your gutters clean. When leaves and debris collect in the gutters, they may cause blockages and interfere with the free drainage of water. Accumulation of moisture may cause leaks.
Have regular cleaning exercises, preferably with the help of a professional. If your roof collects leaves, you may have to clean it more times in a year.
4. Prevent The Formation of Ice Dams
Make sure your attic is well insulated and has no air leaks. By doing so, you will be reducing the risk of ice dam formation by making sure the interior sections of the home are at the same temperature as the environment. The buildup of ice dams increases the risk of damage. Repairing destruction caused by ice dams is usually very expensive.
To prevent snow from melting into water and freezing on the colder areas of the roof, you can dislodge the snow using a snow rake. A telescoping pole would enable you to remove the snow from the ground.
5. Remove Moss
Mosses and algae are so unsightly when they grow on parts of your home. Algae are not a threat to its integrity, so you can just let them be. If you don’t like their appearance, you can do away with them to keep your home clean.
Mosses often grow on the wooden components or the shingles. They may cause massive destruction because they trap moisture. At the early stages of their growth, they can be easily removed by sweeping them off.
To kill these plants, spray them with a solution of water mixed with bleach (ratio of 1:1). Allow the solution to sit on the plants for about 15 minutes then wash it off. Protect yourself by wearing protective clothing. Additionally, cover flowers and plants around the house to prevent them from coming into contact with the bleach.
With regular inspections, you can identify these plants at an early stage of growth before they cause destruction.
Conclusion
You need proper maintenance for your roof to last long and to function optimally. The tricks that you can use to maintain this vital structure may cost you a few bucks, but they will certainly save you from spending a lot more to correct major problems.
You can’t go wrong with the tips we have shared; they make for a stronger and optimally working roofing system!
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