Tips for Dealing with Winter Properly Using Roofing Canton Michigan

• Twelve Oaks Roofing
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If you’re looking for roofing Canton MI during the winter, it’s often going to be even more important than the rest of the year, given the situation. This is because the roofing contractors Canton MI that you find will be making your house livable if you have any kind of damage or even need a new roof right in the middle of the worst of the winter months. Here are some things to keep in mind as you battle winter with your roof, including how Canton Michigan Roofers can help.

Winter and Roofing in MI Overview

It’s no secret that winter in Michigan is one of the most brutal experiences in the country. The fact that Michigan has such a high latitude coupled with the fact that it’s right on a Great Lake means that tons and tons of snow are always on your way. This means that if you have any kind of concern about your roof, it’s a good idea to get it taken care of sooner rather than later. Snow and cold temperatures can be a deadly combination for the unwary in Michigan.

Winter Roofing Tips

Here are some things that can cause damage to your roof that you might need help repairing, or that might be signs that you need contractor help:

• Gutters-It’s important to periodically clean your gutters. People are always saying this, and you’ve probably heard it enough times for it to be tedious, but it is true. Water needs to be able to flow right through your gutters quickly and cleanly at all times. If you let leaves, pests, or whatever else build up in there, then you’re going to get serious problems. The more you clean them out at whatever point throughout the year, especially before a major snow or another precipitation event, the more you’re going to prevent damage. This will include an overabundance of icicles or even ice dams. If this has already happened, then you’ll have to call a contractor, and they might have to help you fix your gutters. Getting advice and help with your gutters from a contractor like the Allpoint , for example, is always a good idea regardless.
• Roof Reinforcing-It’s important to worry about ice dams and ice blockage when you’re taking a look at your roof. If water builds up behind an ice blockage, the result is usually that your ceilings can become damaged. This could allow melting snow to leak into your house. The important thing is to make sure your roof always stays at the same temperature as the eaves or underside of the roof. In order to do this, you’ll want to make sure you have enough insulation, ventilation, and a complete seal on the roof. Any openings or air leaks could make the temperature of the roof different from what’s underneath it. This may include the need to replace your roof entirely if it has enough problems. Better to check on this as early as you can.
• Chimney Insulation-Along with your roof, your chimney is one of the big areas where heating can be a problem during the winter. Many roofing contractors can also help you with this aspect of keeping your house warm. If you aren’t using it at the moment, it helps to get a chimney balloon to keep those air drafts from getting in and for trapping in heat better.
• Caulking-It helps to use a caulk gun to seal up any gaps in the windows, doors, or siding in your house. If you don’t have experience using the gun, you may want to get help from professionals. Contractors for roofing will usually do things like this as well. Any gap in your house, no matter how small, can be an area that air will rush out of in a hurry.
• Weatherstrip Tape-Another small thing you can do to help keep everything warmer in winter is to get some weatherstrip tape and put it around airs and door to help with the insulation. The kind you can get yourself at the store is highly cheap, however, pro contractors will often have even better solutions for you if you ask.
• Swap Out Your Filters-If you have a central air and heating system in your home, it helps to swap out the filter in it as often as you can. This will ensure that everything lasts longer and runs more efficiently, which will help keep your house more economical and warm for cheap during the winter.
• General Insulation-Along with making sure your roof is up to the task of a Michigan winter, it’s also key to make sure you have strong insulation throughout your house. In general, your only going to stay as warm and as dry as your weakest link. This means that it’s important to make sure your insulation game is strong. A roofing contractor can almost always help with this as well, including checking out your fiberglass insulation or even giving you some if you don’t have it yet. You’re going to want to have this insulation packed around windows in rooms you don’t use, near air conditioning units, around basement doors and so on. The floor of your attic could use it too, and any other place that you can think of in general.
• Draft Guards-Another option you can choose to help with staying warm in winter is putting long foam insulation items like draft guards at the bottom of doors and windows to help keep the draft from outside from getting in. Once again, it will also help to consult a company that may have more experience with this as well.
• Wind-proofing-Winds can cause damage to just about any part of your house. You’ll want window shutters and special shingles that are impact-resistant. Make sure that these are all installed properly though. If you have any doubts about it, then it’s a good idea to go with a professional in order to make sure that it’s done right. You hardly want your roof blowing off of your house, or the entire thing becoming de-shingled due to a huge snowstorm like what frequently happens in Michigan. Many contractors can help with this sort of thing in general, including giving your recommendations for things like steel doors.
• Other Considerations-You can save as much as 1 percent on your energy bill for each degree Fahrenheit that you lower your home’s temperature during the winter, according to the Department of Energy in the U.S. This can help you afford the other repairs you need to make in preparation for winter.

Finding Winter Roofing Experts

Ultimately, one of the best options you have, along with whatever you can do to help with winterization yourself, is to spend some effort finding a roofing contractor that specializes in winters in Michigan. Here’s some information about how you can go about doing this.

Reviews

One of the keys to making sure that you have the right company for you is to check out reviews for contractors in the area. Stay away from any company that has only 5-star reviews at 100% if they have hundreds of reviews because it’s possible that they paid people for the reviews. At the very least, do more research if you encounter this.

You’re also going to want to look closely at what the reviews say about winter roofing repairs or even replacements for the company that you are evaluating. If you’re lucky, you may even be able to see reviews for the exact problem that you’re having. It won’t get any better than that in terms of giving you an idea for whether the contractor is the right one for you.

It’s good to check any review places you can, including Yelp and Google, for example.

BBB

It also helps to check the Better Business Bureau to see what people say there about the company, including its winterizing efforts, potentially. There will be both regular reviews from customers as well as a type of evaluation from the site itself, which is based on a letter grade. The letter grade is based on a number of factors, including how well the company handles complaints, how many complaints they get total and other options.

It can also be a good idea to ask around among the friends that you know for recommendations. Additionally, it’s going to be of critical importance to talk directly to the company to make sure they understand the problem with your roof that you are looking for help with before you make any lasting agreements.

Free Quotes

Another good way to weed out companies to find the contractor that you want is to only go with places that offer some kind of free quote or estimate. That way, you can have some come out to your house and take a look at what’s going on with your roof and give you some information on it without having to pay for anything.

They will then give you a quote about how much it’s likely going to cost so that you can then decide whether you want to pay that amount for it. The best places will make it so that you can sign up for this easily just by filling out your name and other information, leaving a comment, and then hitting one button, so you can do it all right from the main page.

Extensive Service Descriptions

If a company just says “we fix your roof” with no real explanation for how exactly they do that, this is a bad sign regarding the proficiency and skill of the company. It’s a better sign when a contractor has different sections for many different services they provide, including roofing, siding, masonry, and windows, for example.

It also helps if there are further subdivisions for each of those services, and extensive descriptions for what sorts of services they can perform on roofing, for example, including things like how they do the roofing, what sort of experience they have with different roofing and roofing problems during the winter, as well as other descriptions related to this.

It’s an easy and quick way to evaluate whether a contracting company knows what they’re doing or not, and how legitimate they likely are, as well as what kind of service you can expect from them.

Chats

The best sites will also have an option to do a live chat right on the main page. You can usually find this located in the bottom right corner of the page. It’s usually a round button that has some kind of chat icon with lines on it. This should get you a lice agent so that you can ask them questions. In cases where it’s not within the chat agent’s business hours, you should be able to leave a message here and get a response quickly.

This is a good way to evaluate the company all by itself, however. You can see how long it takes for them to get back to you. If they do it in a day or two, then that’s one way of checking how fast and responsive they are likely going to be when evaluating and working on your winter roofing problem as well.

Getting It Done

In the end, roofing repair Canton MI will be a big part of your overall wintering strategy. The key is to make sure that you don’t waste too much time before calling. Some things you can prepare for yourself, and others you can’t. It’s critical that you’re able to properly tell the difference between the kind of preparatory and minor work you can do yourself, and when it’s time to call in a professional.

The longer you wait when a serious problem is occurring that causes your roof to leak or your hose to get cold, the more damage could accrue. The more damage there is, the more it’s going to cost, the longer it’s going to take to fix, and the more danger you might be in due to your house becoming unsafe in the winter.