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Living in Michigan, you become familiar with the needs of your home’s roof. Every year, impressive seasonal storms and gale-force winds come roaring through the state, leaving random houses and their roofs devastated in heir wake. Michigan deals with an incredible storm season that stretches clear through winter. Because of those, we are –as a community– pretty conversant with roof repair needs. From shingles peeled up by storm to shingles beaten by hail, from dealing with summer leaks to winter ice dams.
There are many different types of roofing repair that a Canton MI resident might need. If you are considering the condition and maintenance of your home’s roof, it strongly helps to understand the difference between the types of roofing repair. Today, we’ve put together the top seven categories of roofing repair a Canton MI home might need, then broken each category down into individual repairs within.
Shingle repair is the single most common type of roof repair in Canton, in Michigan, and in the country. Most roofs are made from composite asphalt shingles that are flexible, resistant, and versatile. But they do take damage. When a composite asphalt shingle, a wooden shake, or a roof tile is damaged, it usually can’t be repaired. Instead, the shingle is replaced. For the many different ways that your shingles could be damaged, you will need to call for shingle replacement
The first type of shingle repair are spot-replacements. This is when one shingle at a time, or a very small cluster, is replaced. Roof repair technicians replace shingles with the spot-repair method all the time and minor weather-related damage is almost always fixed with small-scale shingle replacement.
Patch repairs can be more extensive. Sometimes, an entire section of roof can be damaged. This can happen, for example, when a falling branch cracks many shingles all together. A storm might also rip or bend or mark many shingles over the entire roof. When shingles need to be replaced in a patch, they can be more completely layered together but the job will ultimately be bigger.
After shingle repairs, gutters are undeniably the next most common. Gutters are designed to help rainwater and melted ice flow down off of your roof and away from the house. However, gutters need semi-constant and regular maintenance to do their job aptly. Many Canton MI homeowners call for roof repairs to maintain or fix their gutters.
Deciduous trees drop leaves and pine trees drop needles. All sorts of debris can build up inside your gutters; debris that will ultimately block the flow of water and melt-off. Regular gutter cleaning is necessary and not all homeowners have the time, energy, or agility to do it. Most roof repair services include gutter cleaning as an option.
If a gutter becomes too heavy with wet debris or takes a hit, it can detach from the edge of your roof. Gutters can be bent, disconnected, and damaged. If this happens, you can call for gutter repairs to have your gutter reshaped and reattached.
Older gutters may be past the point of repairs. If your gutters are rusted through or otherwise have worn out, gutter replacement is a quick and convenient roof repair to fix the problem.
You can also have your gutter upgraded. You can install gutter guards, which are special grates or screens that cap your gutters. Solids like leaves and twigs are held on top while water flows right through and into the intended channel.
In Canton, Michigan, storms are a big part of annual life. Preparing for the yearly storms becomes tradition, as should yearly roof repairs. If your home is damaged in a storm, there are a few different types of storm damage repair available to you.
After each serious storm, it’s smart to call for a cursory roof inspection. If your roof inspector doesn’t find anything, then you’re golden. If they do find some damage, your roofing service can do spot-repair cleanup on the few shingles affected by the storm.
Storm damage sometimes goes deeper than just the shingles. If a large branch fell and damaged your home or if a storm brought on serious roof leaks, your roofing team may need to perform structural roof repairs. These may involve the underlayment, beams, and insulation in addition to shingles.
After the inspection and/or structural repairs, storm damage caps with new surface-layer shingles to replace any shingles that were damaged in the storm. Hail-pocked shingles, cracked shingles, and bent shingles can all be repaired.
Flashing is the special metal and composite lining around the seam in roof elements. A chimney, for example, needs flashing between where the shingles stop and the chimney tower itself. Flashing is used for vents, dormer windows, skylights, satellites, and roof decor. But if your flashing is incomplete or damaged, then water can leak in where the shingles arent.
When flashing comes away from the roof surface or feature, this is usually the fault of old roof caulk. Your flashing can be re-sealed to fix a leak by chipping away the old caulk and applying new caulk to the gap.
Sometimes, it is more practical to replace the flashing. this is particularly true when roofing shingles nearby are also being replaced or the roof is being reinstalled. New flashing is much more likely to last than reusing and resealing old flashing.
Roof fascia are a semi-disposable wood component of the roof. They are wood planks that go just behind the gutters. In other words, fascia absorb moisture at the edge of a roof so that the house doesn’t have to. Because of this, roof fascia tend to rot faster than the rest of the house. Fascia, therefore, need replacing more often when they age prematurely. If your home needs new or repaired fascia, a Canton roofing team can help.
The most common roof fascia repair is to replace the boards. Because it is expected for these boards to rot, they are made easy to replace in the design and most roofers will assume that replacement is the repair needed.
There are some occasions where fascia only needs repair. A new fascia that has come loose at one end, for example, need only minor repairs from a ladder-safe roofing team. A cracked fascia may also be re-secured to itself.
When you need serious roof repairs, often the repairs will relate to the underlayment and the structural beams. The underlayment is a layer of wooden board between the beams and the shingles. It provides support for the shingles and is the sturdy surface we walk on when up on the roof. Your structural beams are the ribs of your roof, defining the shape and strong points. If something goes wrong with the underlayment or structural beams, then your roof should go immediately under construction to become safe again.
Take a step back from your home. Take several steps back and look at it from down the street. Can you see a dip? A valley in the of is no laughing matter. A dip in the surface or along the edge of your roof shows that, at the very least, your underlayment is damaged. This could indicate a structural weak point for your entire roof. Experienced roof repair teams know how to identify a roof valley and how to efficiently repair the underlying problems.
Roof leaking can happen for many different reasons. It could be the flashing, a gap in the shingles, softened shingles, or impact damage. It could be a problem with the gutters or the fascia or a vent cover. When your roof is leaking, you can rely on a Canton MI roofing repair team to get to the bottom of the problem, no matter what layer of roof needs fixing.
Ice dams occur when ice builds up ontop of a roof and water can’t escape. This can lead to a cycle of melting and re-freezing that is very bad for the roof. Whether your ice dams happen at the edges or in new valley puddles, they can do damage to the underlayment and beams below the shingles. A roofing repair team can fix that water damage and ensure ice dams stop happening.
Not everyone would think of attic ventilation as essential to roofing repair, but it absolutely is. This is especially true in cold winter communities like Canton, MI. Because of the heavy snows, attic ventilation is vital to prevent snow buildup, ice dams, heavy icicles, and other winter roof hazards.
Ice dams occur when ice doesn’t fully melt and trickle off the roof. It re-freezes instead. This means that good ventilation in the attic, keeping warm air circulating evenly underneath, is essential to prevent ice dams. If you want to avoid the kind of damage an ice dam can cause, as your roofing repair team to take a look at your ventilation system in the attic.
Attics tend to collect moisture, and mold loves moisture combined with exposed wood. If you don’t want to turn your attic into a fungus farm, then improve the circulation. Air circulation will help keep the air clean, dry, and not harboring mold spores. The risks of mold are myriad, ranging from headaches to long-term neurological damage. If you suspect you are in a home with serious mold but have not seen it yet, reach out for help before proceeding.
Finally, good ventilation in the attic can actually lower the cost of heating a Michigan home in the winter. By maintaining a warm interior with good temperature containment in the attic insulation, you can significantly reduce the amount of electricity your your home needs when it comes to heating bills. Sometimes, roof repair not only fixes a problem, it can actually improve your entire home situation.
Now that you have a broad grasp of roofing repair types, the question is what type of roofing repair your home needs. If you have just weathered a storm, consider calling for an inspection and storm restoration services. If you know there has recently been an impact, you may need structural roof repairs and, at the very least, a patch of damaged shingles replaced.
Older homes benefit from more complete roofing repair options while newer homes still need to be monitored and maintained. You may have recently had your roof inspected only to be told a laundry list of repairs that are needed. Hopefully, this guide and your own knowledge of the house can help you choose your roofing repair services wisely. Know what you need and what the terms mean when roofing repairs are described. From there, you will be in the perfect position to make a smart choice on the repairs ou need and the preemptive repairs you could have.
Here at ALLPOINT , we take roofing as seriously as you do. Proudly providing roofing services for the Canton MI neighborhoods, we strive to offer superior service, transparency, safety, and satisfaction to local clients. We would love to help keep your home in top condition with regular and storm season inspections, roof repairs, and emergency roof repairs depending on your need.
We look forward to hearing from each new client and from return clients who we have helped in the past. If you are considering the state of your roof and future roof repairs in Canton, MI, contact us today! We hope to hear from you soon.