Your gutters are an integral part of your home, as is your roof. When it comes to cleaning your gutters, all homeowners should be cleaning their gutters periodically to ensure there is no build-up or damage. Things like that can cause other issues to the structure of your home if left unattended.
While you’re inspecting and cleaning your gutters, this is also the perfect time to inspect your roof. But what exactly do you want to be looking for when inspecting your roof, and what is the best way to do this?
Tips for Inspecting
Don’t Get On The Home Roof Alone
It might seem like common sense; however, one of the main tips for inspecting your roof is not to do so alone when cleaning your gutters. Always have someone to watch out for you from the ground, hold your ladder if required, and act as a second pair of eyes.
Sometimes it pays to stand back and inspect from a different angle. While you can do this before cleaning your gutters, having someone to assist you with identifying issues on your roof can help you make sure you are safe, and accessing the roof safely, too.
This is one of those instances where it can be appropriate to pay for a professional to assist with a roof inspection or gutter cleaning service.
Look for Build Up in the Home Gutters and On the Roof
When visually inspecting your roof, you want to be looking out for any type of build-up like you do with your gutters; make sure your ladders are safe and secure. Inspect your roof (you can use binoculars if you wish) to see if you can spot any build-up of leaves, debris, moss, algae, or anything else such as birds’ nests or pests. Moss is especially dangerous for your roof as it absorbs water, damaging any wooden rafters on your roof.
If you can easily access the build-up, safely remove it from your roof and assess the roof for further damage. It could be that an accumulation of debris on your roof can be hiding damage.
Inspect for Missing or Damaged Parts on Your Home Roof and Gutters
Avoid putting yourself in danger by inspecting your roof. Roofs can be made up of different materials, and over time, these materials can become worn or damaged by the environment. You need to know what your roof should look like to help you spot any signs of damage, missing shingles, or tiles.
Sometimes, this can be easy to spot; however, if your roof has different angles, you may need to get a professional to look at it for you to ensure you haven’t missed anything. Alternatively, drones can help reach those tricky parts of your roof and can alert you to any damage you can find visually.
While you are there, if your roof has shingles, you should pay attention to them to check if any are curling or not. As you would expect, shingles that are starting to curl will have come away from the roof on the corners or edges and will be slightly raised. As a bonus, when cleaning your gutters, if you spot any debris from your roof material, you need to find the cause of this and see how bad the damage is.
Importance of Inspecting Home Roof
Regular cleaning of your gutters will allow you to check on the health of your roof. You should assess its condition before any problems arise or become worse than they need to be, due to poor roof maintenance.
If you’re in the Greater Northwest, we’d love to serve you! Our professional roof repair contractors serve all of NW Oregon & SW Washington.
