Roof Maintenance Tips Every Homeowner Should Know

A roof needs about ninety minutes a year

That is genuinely the whole commitment. Two seasonal look-overs and one gutter clearing is enough to catch nearly every problem while it is still measured in tens rather than thousands.

The reason roofs fail early is almost never neglect of the dramatic kind. It is that nobody looked for eight years, and the small thing that started in year three had eight years to work.

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Look from the ground, twice a year

Spring and autumn, with a pair of binoculars and a slow walk around the house. You are looking for anything that breaks the pattern — a shingle sitting proud, a dark patch where granules have washed off, a line of daylight where there should be flashing.

Then look at the gutters. Granules accumulating in them is the roof telling you its surface is wearing, and a sudden increase after a storm is worth a proper inspection rather than a shrug.

The five-minute checks worth doing

None of these need a ladder, and all of them catch something eventually.

• Ceilings and upstairs corners after heavy rain, for new staining
• The attic on a bright day, for daylight through the sheathing
• Pipe boots and chimney flashing, using binoculars from the garden
• Overhanging branches, which abrade the surface every windy night

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Moss and algae are not the same problem

The dark streaks running down a north-facing slope are algae. They are cosmetic, they do not shorten the roof, and pressure washing them off absolutely does.

Moss is the one to act on. It holds water against the shingle and lifts the edges as it grows, and both of those shorten the roof measurably.

Treat moss with a proper cleaner and let it die back rather than scraping it, and consider a zinc or copper strip at the ridge, which quietly prevents regrowth every time it rains.

Know what you should not do yourself

Anything requiring you to stand on the roof belongs to someone with a harness and insurance. Falls from residential roofs are common, unglamorous and life-changing, and the money saved is never close to worth it.

Sealant is the other trap. A tube of mastic over a flashing joint hides the problem for one season and makes the eventual repair harder, because now somebody has to remove it before they can see what actually failed.