Why You Should Carry Out Annual Roof maintenance
May 1, 2014 by admin
Filed under House & Home
Roof Maintenance
Your roof is the first line of defence, protecting your home and contents with annual roof maintenance will allow you to protect yourself from the elements year after year. When a roof begins to deteriorate it sometimes isn’t obvious, but roofing issues can soon become major, causing damage to the property as well as your possessions.
In the UK the most common roofing materials are slate and cement tiles. Thatch and shingle tiles are also used but less frequently. It is important that you keep an eye on your roof for signs of wear and damage so you can make a repair before expensive damage is caused.
A roof is constantly under attack from the weather, extremes of heat and cold, frosts and ice, rain and wind as well as wildlife and plant life too.
The differing weather in the UK causes your roof to undergo a lot of different stresses. Your roof has to be able to expand and contract as the temperature changes and over time that movement can cause tiles to crack or slip.
In addition, animals often cause damage to roof spaces, which again can cause tiles and ridges to move, slip or be dislodged completely.
Just one or two broken tiles can cause thousands of £’s of damage in a storm
People only realize that their roof needs repair when tiles or slates are blown off the roof in stormy weather. Just one slipped tile can allow enough wind into your roof space to blow the entire roof into the street. A seemingly small area of damage can quickly cost you your whole roof.
A common area of roof leaks is the flashing around chimney breasts and brickwork. Over time, the cement used can decay and break up, allowing moisture into the joint which then gets worse in cold weather as that moisture can freeze, breaking the cement further.
If allowed to fall into disrepair, wooden fascias will rot and decay, causing further damage to your roof trusses. These support your main roof structure and are expensive to repair. Because we generally don’t go near our roofs, we tend to take them for granted until they cause a problem. Quite often a little roof maintenance would have prevented a large repair bill or insurance claim.
Roof maintenance will protect the value of your property and your investment. A stitch in time quite often saves nine later on.
An annual inspection provides piece of mind and will allow your roof to easily withstand the worst of our winter weather in the years to come. A regular inspection of your roof can prevent unwanted disasters from occurring by making sure that your roof is all securely in place and water tight.