Home Improvement Site

Owning a home is a wonderful experience and one most people hope to have during their lifetime. Your home is the place where you can escape from the worries and stresses of life and just be with the ones you love and create lasting memories. However, owning a home requires work, responsibility, and maintenance. To ensure the safety and value of your home, there are things which, at times must be updated or replaced. A roof is one of those expenses that no one really wants to spend their money on, but is necessary at times to maintain the integrity of your home. After all, you don’t want your “lasting memories” to be memories of everyone sitting around with water dripping into pots all around them due to a leaky roof. But how can you know if your roof is actually needing to replaced or if some contractor is just out to make a few bucks and sees you as an easy target. Here are a few tips to help know if it’s time to replace your roof:

Take a look: If you are able to access your roof, you can make a thorough inspection. If you’ve had a large storm recently, you may have lost some shingles. If you have shingles that are rotting or curling, water can get underneath and begin damaging the roof from underneath, leading to a leaky roof. Check to see how much of the area is missing. If it’s a small area, more than likely you can just do a roof repair as opposed to replacing the entire roof.

Additionally, you need to also check the see if any flashing is missing or rusted. This is the metal that surrounds the chimney or other openings in the roof. Repairing this will also help prevent a leaky roof.

Take a look inside your house as well. Check for any areas which show signs of water damage or areas of peeling paint. This may suggest a leak somewhere other than the obvious places.

Do it right: If a large area of the roof is needing repair, your roof may just need to be replaced. Depending on the area of the country in which you live, you may have to repair or or replace your roof more or less often. For example, in the mountainous west, roofs should last about twenty years. In other areas roofs may need to be replaced about every ten years.

It is important to do the job right in order to avoid costlier repairs in the future. Typically, you have the option of either removing the entire roof and laying a new one, or laying a new roof on top of the old one. Laying a new roof on top of the old one is cheaper, but can cause future problems. For example, if you lay a new layer on top of a roof where there are already two or three layers, you could trap rot or miss areas of weakness which will continue to worsen and then you will end up replacing the entire roof anyway. Also, the more layers you add the heavier the roof becomes making it less stable. Sometimes, if the budget won’t permit a new roof, making small repairs now, can buy you some time to build up equity in the home which can then be used to repair the roof correctly.

Educate yourself: Take some time to learn about the kind of roof you already have and the kinds of materials out there. Look up information on what it would cost to do it yourself versus paying somebody else. Having this information will help you if you decide to try and hire a contractor. You will be able to discuss your roof with them and know beforehand an approximate cost, the type of materials you want to use, and how long the job should take. You’ll save yourself some money and hassle in the long run.

Get it done: Nobody likes spending their money on something as “unfun” as a new roof, but it’s an important part of the upkeep of your home. It is necessary to ensure the safety and value of your home and needs to be done at some point. Taking the time to investigate your own roof and learn a few basic terms will help you get through the process.

In Vancouver extra care is needed when getting a estimate for a home. A roofing company in Vancouver needs to know exactly what they are dealing with when taking your roof off. Unforeseen costs are a common situation in Vancouver and every owner should be prepared

Heritage- being one of the oldest areas in the GVRD you can understand that there are some pretty old houses. With a steep pitch roof, probably in the vicinity of 12/12 pitch which basically means 45 degree angle roof. The original roof was cedar shake sitting on strapping. I don’t know if it was being lazy or the norm, if people were trying to save money but if you have this roof you probably got more than one layer on the roof. The original is still on and 2 other layers sit above the cedar shake. I have come across house where five layers sat on top of the house. According to building code now days a Vancouver roofing company must remove all layers if a new roof is to be placed above. You folks tend to pay more due to the steepness, the few layers of roof, the plywood deck and the difficulty. You are probably two feet from your neighbors

Low Slope – Vancouver special homes run throughout East Vancouver. The slight problem with these homes in regards to roofing is that fewer and fewer roofing companies out there do tar and gravel. The choice you have is torch on or metal. Asphalt shingles cannot go on these homes. Your pitch is to low and asphalt probably wouldn’t last ten years. Vancouver roofing contractors that have been in the business of torch on for more than ten years are probably reliable. Snow and ice build up on these roofs cause mini swimming pools to develop on your roof and cause major leaking, always keep the gutters and downpipes clear.

Low Slope or Steep Slope cedar shake – In Vancouver this is common on the West side. There isn’t much to say about Cedar in Vancouver. There was a long period through the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s when Vancouver roofing companies were not installing cedar. Most Cedar roofs are new construction. cedar is the one product that most issues can be determined before the work begins

Low Slope or Steep Slope Asphalt roofing – If you have asphalt roofing and it hasn’t been changed in the last ten years then you have a solid deck. Since the 70′s asphalt came into the market. With new construction shiplap or also known as tongue and groove was the only option of a solid deck. Shiplap moves a lot in the winter and in summer so plywood should be layered down by the roofing contractor

Whether you have ever considered installing fibreglass roofs on your property, garage or shed before, or whether it’s not something you’ve even thought about, this summer it would be a wise idea to think about the idea of GRP roofing very seriously, especially after the winter weather we’ve enjoyed for so many months.

Have you ever looked out of an upstairs window onto one of your flat roofs? Perhaps you have a porch with a flat roof, a shed or garage, a kitchen extension or even a second floor extension. If these are not fibreglass flat roofs then there is a very high probability that during the course of the winter they will have become partly damaged.

At first the damage may be hardly noticeable, and a quick glance may reveal nothing extraordinary that warrants your attention. But unfortunately this is very often the case, and it is only at the point where damage to roofs has become so severe that your home is at risk that the damage becomes easily noticeable.

It is for this reason that spending a few minutes now, as the weather is drying out and becoming more pleasant, checking your flat roofs for telltale signs of wear, tear and damage could save you a great deal financially in the future.

Many traditional flat roofs are made using felt roofing, although you may have noticed that new build properties don’t tend to use felt anywhere near as much as used to be the case. Today you’ll probably notice that newly built properties usually incorporate fibreglass flat roofs, and this is simply because GRP roofing is quicker to fit, cheaper to install and lasts many times as long as felt roofing, with the added benefit that it requires virtually no maintenance.

One of the major problems with felt roofing is that the felt material itself is fairly flexible, and prone to stretching. This very often means that when it rains the water starts to pool, collecting in the softest, weakest area of the roof.

The weight of this pooling water then causes the felt roofing to stretch even more, and this creates a sagged depression which is then even more prone to pooling in the future. Snow has a similar effect, gathering in a relatively even layer initially, but then collecting together into a pool of water as it starts to melt. These pools of water can remain for several days, and will gradually cause more and more distortion to the roof material.

Because fibreglass flat roofs don’t distort or stretch they are immune to this problem, and are fitted in such a way that pooling is impossible. This alone represents a massive advantage over other roofing methods, since it is the pooling which causes more damage to flat roofs than anything else.

With GRP roofing you will be safe from water damage, but with felt roofing the stretching and distortion of the material eventually opens up gaps at the seams, and can result in tears too. These allow water to enter the flat roof cavity, and although initially this is unlikely to result in water entering your home, it will cause the wooden framework of the flat roof to absorb moisture, warping, twisting and cracking, helping to open up the gaps, tears and openings even wider, allowing even more water to enter the roof space.

Very quickly this will result in water entering the home, and the first sign that this is happening is usually a general dampness on the wall, leading rapidly to mildew. This is of course a very real health risk quite apart from looking unsightly, and if left untreated there is every possibility of serious water damage which could be very costly to put right.

But as the weather improves and it becomes easier to check out the state of your flat roofs after the horrendous weather we’ve been experiencing for the last few months, look for those telltale signs of early roof damage, including warping, distortion, tears, gaps, or even simply a build-up of moss which is a very clear indication that water has been pooling throughout the winter.

By having your old flat roofs replaced with fibreglass flat roofs or GRP roofing you can be assured that from the very moment they’re fitted your home will no longer be at risk from water damage caused by roofs simply not designed to cope with the amount of wet weather we experience in the UK today.