Your roof is leaking like a post-iceberg Titanic. Or perhaps it’s shedding tiles as though it is an exotic lizard ditching old skin. Do you pick up your ladder or your phone?
When your roof needs repairs, you may feel tempted to either give it a go yourself or hire a general handyperson to perform the work. However, these attempts to save money may be misguided and cost you more than if you’d worked with roof repair experts from the beginning. Here are some of the many reasons you should hire experts for your roof repairs:
Quality Roofing Materials
You can wander the aisles of a massive hardware store and stare at row after row of building materials. If you are examining products, you’ve never used, how do you know what is quality roofing and what is likely to lead to another repair in a few years or even months? Roofing professionals work with these materials day in and day out. We know what products are high-quality, long-lasting choices and which to avoid. We also have access to materials that are different from those at the local hardware store.
All this means that with an expert roofing contractor performing your repairs, you get higher-quality materials than you would if you tried to DIY the project.
Warranty
Your work, no matter how well-intentioned, doesn’t come with a warranty. Roof repair experts will provide a warranty on both materials and workmanship. That provides recourse if the repair doesn’t last. It should also give you confidence in their abilities. If a company constantly has to redo its work, it isn’t going to stay in business for very long. That means the guarantees they offer should make you feel secure about the quality of their work.
If your DIY fixes fail, you have no one to blame but yourself. And you have no one to help you redo the work. That’s after you address the damage to the interior of your home.
A reputable roofing company will stand by their work, giving you peace of mind that it will be performed correctly and that any unexpected issues will be promptly and thoroughly addressed.
Expertise
Roofing professionals spend hours and hours each week performing roof work. An experienced roofer has seen just about anything that can happen on or to a roof. As a result, no matter the problem, they will have the best solution.
Roofing professionals are experts at tracking down leaks, which can sometimes be several feet, or even several rooms, away from where you are seeing the problem. Water can travel along beams or other structural components, surfacing surprisingly far from their source. Your roofing expert knows how to track the leak back to its source to make sure they make the repair in the proper place.
Working on residential roof repair week after week gives your roofer the experience, they need to understand how to make a complete, long-lasting repair. While on your roof, they also understand what signs to look for that might indicate additional sources of problems. That means they can catch and address something before it becomes a lake in your living room and an expensive disaster.
Safety
Walking around on your roof, which could be ten, twenty, or more feet off the ground, is not something to take lightly. Falling from your roof can lead to concussions and even lifelong debilitating conditions or severe traumatic brain injury. In the worst roof falls, it could lead to death. You could also break arms, legs, or other bones. Roofing professionals have proper safety gear for repairing your roof. This equipment could include helmets, harnesses, and rope systems to keep them safe on the job.
Roofers also have an understanding of how to use these systems properly. You could purchase a helmet, harness, and some ropes, but these items are costly. And once you strap them on, do you know how to use them? Most homeowners don’t.
Safety gear can cause you to be overconfident, making you even less safe. If you slip and need your gear to save you, you may learn the hard way, when you hit the hard ground, that your equipment won’t help. Perhaps your helmet wasn’t on correctly, you had so much slack in the rope that it didn’t catch you, or your harness didn’t fit you properly.
Additionally, roof repair professionals have experience working in high places and on sloped surfaces. Their footing will be more sure than that of someone stepping out onto a roof for the first time.
Cost
Cost is the main reason people cite for using amateur labor instead of roof repair experts. However, once you factor in purchasing safety equipment, buying specialty tools, and paying higher prices for materials at retail prices, any potential savings may already be wiped out.
Roofing contractors already have the tools and equipment necessary to perform roof work. We buy our materials in bulk and at wholesale prices that are a fraction of what you’d pay as a retail buyer.
On top of that, factor in the additional costs of having to redo your work if it doesn’t resolve the problem the first time. If you end up with significant drywall repair on your ceiling because the leak you thought you fixed shows up again after the next rainstorm, you will end up spending more, not less. You could even see increased insurance premiums, meaning amateur roof work’s financial pain could last years.
Time
Because they know their way around roofs, experts can quickly complete your roof repairs while ensuring top-quality workmanship. What could cost you an entire weekend might be finished in a few hours. Professional repairs will be much more efficient, and that’s before you calculate the repeated trips to the hardware store. It seems to be a law of the universe that you can never finish a home project with just one trip to the store.
Save yourself time and frustration. Bring in the professionals. Save your weekends for relaxing with friends and family, not climbing around on your roof trying to find the source of your problem.
Roof systems are complex, with each element supporting the next. That makes repairs more challenging than they might initially seem. That complexity, coupled with the expertise from years of experience, access to lower-cost and higher-quality materials, time and safety considerations, and warranties, are all reasons you should leave your roof repair work to the experts.
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Infographic
When your roof needs repairs, hiring roof repair experts instead of attempting DIY or hiring a general handyman can save you time and money in the long run. This infographic outlines why you should hire experts for your roof repairs.
