Keeping your home’s roof intact and in good condition is key to maintaining its overall health and ensuring that its value doesn’t depreciate. Depending on changing seasons, your home will be subject to harsh sunlight, pelting rain, hail, dry weather, or even snow. Each of these weather conditions can cause plenty of damage to your home’s roofing.
And without taking care of these issues as soon as they occur, the damage will only worsen – and be much more problematic over time.
Don’t believe it can be this bad? Well, here’s a breakdown of what happens if you don’t regularly complete a roof cleaning.
Why Roof Cleaning Is Important
First off, it makes your home look good on the outside – no one wants a grimy, dirty roof; it simply reflects poorly on you and how you take care of your home.
Secondly, aside from the aesthetics, roof cleaning is incredibly important to protect the interiors of your home from damage and, believe it or not, protects your and your family’s health as well!
Here’s What Happens Without Regular Roof Cleaning
While this list isn’t exhaustive, we’ve compiled the most common issues homeowners will face when they don’t regularly maintain and clean their roofs.
Buildup Of All The Nasties
If you have trees all around your home, your home’s gutters and roofing likely get a lot of leaves deposited on them. Plus, when it rains, or any moisture settles in, this organic matter begins to decompose – which, when left over a long period of time, turns into algae, moss, and mildew.
Algae
Algae is quite common and is also quite damaging to your roof. It tends to feed off limestone and asphalt on your roof. What’s more, it spreads pretty quickly and easily, which means not only will your home’s roof be affected, but so will others in the neighbourhood.
Algae also soak up sunlight from the outside and, in turns, heats your home up even more – which will result in higher cooling costs for you. Finally, algae are slippery, so if – for any reason – you climb up onto your roof – you could slip and really injure yourself.
Moss
Moss can be as threatening to your roof as any other issue. It causes roofing shingles to lift or curl, hold moisture, and pose a health hazard.
Moss can also lead to rot, damaging your home’s roofing, pillars and supporting beams. As the rot sets in, it weakens your home’s structure, which can result in some pretty serious damage.
Pests
Did we mention that decomposing organic material can actually act as food for all the little critters you don’t want living in your home? Yeah, we mean rodents, birds, bugs and all sorts of other insects. Rodents can chew through weakening wood and build their homes in these crevices, while birds and bees use the cracked and uneven areas to balance their nests and hives. When these critters enter your home, you’re sure to need not only a professional roof cleaning but a pest control service too!
Poor Air Quality
If the mould gets into cracks and permeates your home, it adversely affects the air quality, causing respiratory problems for you and your family.
We don’t mean to scare you, but it’s also possible that as mould spores settle in various parts of your home, they will quickly start multiplying, affecting every room in your house!
Increasing Expenses
Aside from requiring a cleaning inside your home because of the proliferation of mould, you could face other conditions too!
Sometimes your home’s roofing can come under warranty, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to clean your home’s roof. Read the fine print; certain warranties include clauses that state that the homeowner needs to complete routine roof cleaning and maintenance.
In addition, if you wait for each issue to worsen, you might land up having a ton of roof problems that are going to cost you a fortune to fix.
In short, not cleaning your roof will result in plenty of expensive repairs in the future.
Resale Value
Your home’s resale value will be severely reduced if you have plenty of structural issues to be repaired. Potential buyers will not want to deal with fixing parts of a new home and will be hesitant to spend their money on a home that they see as falling apart.
How You Can Maintain Your Roof
Okay, so now that it’s pretty clear how important a thorough roof cleaning is – it’s time to figure out how you will tackle this task.
Largely, here are the two options you have;
DIY Roof Cleaning
Unless you’re pretty nifty with climbing up a ladder and cleaning out each part of your roof – this task isn’t as easy as it may seem – and no, standing on the ground and pointing your water hose up won’t cut it!
Apart from getting up to the roof, you also will likely have to carry heavy containers of cleaning solutions and tools to help you do the job. You will also need to spend a while up there in the heat or the cold.
Not to mention the cost of purchasing and maintaining tools that you’ll need and the solutions you will have to store somewhere in your house.
Hiring Professional Cleaners
Roof cleaning is a hazardous task. No matter how long you’ve lived in your home or how good your hand-eye coordination is, there are still many chances that you could do further damage to your roofing or, worse – injure yourself.
One way to ensure your own safety – and that of your roof, of course – is to get professional cleaners to do the task for you. Getting a roof cleaning done professionally will also save you plenty of time – and ensures that no part of your roof gets damaged, saving you money.
Professionals have the understanding and knowledge of how to work around different roof types and issues. They will also be able to handle various unforeseen problems on-site.
Sounds pretty good, right?
