Many people live in their home and never think to have the roof or rainwater goods checked by a professional roofing contractor until it is too late. This can mean the costly exercise of having a roofer installing a new roof when simple maintenance may have been sufficient.
At least once a year you should have the roof and rainwater goods checked over by a competent roofer. The insides of gutters are often be neglected as these cannot be seen from ground level and yet it is the inside of the gutter that does all the work in transporting all the rain to the fall pipes. It is very important to maintain the internal roofing gutter troughs and also keep them clean. Leaves and silt build can lead to grass and foliage growing which can block gutters fast and allow overflowing, often into the property. A gutter can leak gradually and can occur totally unnoticed by the homeowner until a large amount of costly damage has been done and a qualified roofer is needed. The damage is slow and works its way internally destroying timbers and plaster in its path. A professional roofing contractor can replace a new gutter quickly and within an affordable budget in a number of material types and styles to compliment your home.
What can go wrong with my roof?
1. Roofs are high up and therefore possible roofing problems will tend to go unnoticed by the homeowner. A thorough inspection by a roofer can reveal defects such as loose flashings, split lead valleys and crumbling chimneystack tops.
2. Other areas of high failure are splitting flat roof felts and tiles/slates breaking down through delaminating (splitting of the natural layers). Loose and cracked pointing on ridge tiles will allow natural frost action to ‘open’ the fractures up and cause these to become loose and dangerous in high winds.
3. The vast majority of wind damaged roofs are those that have had little or no roofing maintenance upon them. The homeowner has to be careful in that some insurance policies will be void if maintenance has been neglected. Liability for third parties has to be considered also as it has been known for homeowners to be subjected to legal proceedings by a member of public for injuries sustained from falling roof tiles that were loose through neglect.
Are roofing repairs expensive?
The cost of using a professional roofer to carry out roofing maintenance will depend on the scale of work required but generally it is best to have regular cheaper maintenance by a roofing contractor rather than to have a more costly major roof repair at a later date. Gutters that are annually cleaned and sealed by a roofer can live up to ten times longer than gutters that are not serviced. Timber gutters can outlive a property if cared for in the appropriate manner.
A thorough inspection and roofing report with digital photos will identify the condition of your existing roof. This may show the need for a roofer to install a new roof. New house roofs can vary vastly in price for obvious reasons such as size of property and the material used. A guideline cost for a roofing contractor to install a new terraced roof could start from as little as £2000.00. You may be surprised and find that your neglected roof just requires a thorough overhaul costing just a few hundred pounds rather than a complete new roof.