BEST WAYS TO PREVENT ROOF LEAKS AND DAMAGE

A leaky and damaged roof is one of the worst things that a homeowner can go through. When preventative measures aren’t taken, some homeowners don’t even realise that damage has been done until it’s far too late. If you want to find ways to protect your home and roof from leaks and damage, you’ve come to the right place

For preventative measures, read our tips and tricks below.

Trees

Some homeowners disregard tree maintenance because it seems overrated. That said, you should definitely be keeping up with your maintenance. If you don’t, you can soon end up with tree branches and leaves in your gutters. Once this happens, your gutters can fail very quickly. That’s because the extra weight will put more pressure on your gutter bolts and on your gutters in general. Once one gutter or bolt fails, it puts more pressure on the ones following it and over time, they all fail. This will cost you a lot of extra money.

Regular Gutter Maintenance

We started talking about your gutters in the last example, but what you might not know is that the majority of roofing leaks will come from your gutters. Because of this, you should make regular appointments to have your gutters checked. If they’re hanging or loose, you’ll have stagnant water that stays at the same place in your gutters and will eventually begin to leak.

In this case, your gutters will not be able to evacuate water from your roof. Making usual appointments will allow your gutters to last longer and stay clean.

The Chimney

Make sure that your chimney is regularly caulked. This is the same with skylights because when these aren’t caulked, the problem will quickly spread to your roof.

This is most often caused by a problem with your chimney flashing, which begins from your chimney to your roof. When there’s a problem with it, you can begin experiencing leaks from your roof; however, it might not be evident that this is actually coming from your chimney.

Flashings

Flashings can be a major cause of leaking roofs. This could be from either incorrect installation or the weathering/deterioration of the silicon applied to seal them. If not attended to in a timely manner additional work may be required to the timber underneath the roof.

Conclusion

When you’re trying to prevent leaks and roof damage, it might be hard to know where to start. That’s because there are so many different causes of roof damage and water leaks that it can come from pretty much anywhere.

The best thing for you to do is to have annual checkups with your roofing company, to maintain your gutters, to keep your chimney caulked, and to trim your tree branches. For more information, you can read the above tips.