How to Prepare Your Roof for the Winter Season

If you live in an area of the country with distinct seasons, you probably appreciate how much the exterior temperature can affect your home—but before you cut the turkey or put up your Christmas tree this holiday season, it would be wise to think about your roof.

Knowing how to prepare your roof for the winter season can save you time, money and a headache. It’s an often overlooked but valuable part of homeownership.

This article will cover what to do to your roof before winter begins.

Inspect your roof or call in an expert

Before the frigid weather begins in earnest, you should either have a professional come to inspect your roof or do it yourself. If you elect to do it yourself, you should be looking for a few things. You’ll want to look closely at your rooflines to ensure that they’re straight and that there is no sagging or curving.

Next you’ll want to check the shingles on your roof and find any places where they’re missing. And finally, you’ll want to look for any debris that might have accumulated up on your roof, so that you can remove it as soon as possible.

Trim the trees in your yard

Having trees in your yard offers natural shade and protects your house from overheating in the summer. Come winter though, you’ll want to trim those trees, especially if they have low-hanging branches or branches that hang over your roof.

The reason for this is that trees are the main cause of debris on your roof. Their leaves, sticks and twigs can pile up fast. Worse, that debris might get caught in your gutters and cause you an additional headache. Trees can also die during the winter, posing a falling branch hazard, and they also offer an easy way for critters to get onto your roof and potentially into your attic.

Clean your gutters

This is the time-consuming task that’s the bane of many a homeowner’s existence. It must be done though, especially before the frosty temperatures set in. While the main reason to clean your gutters (i.e., to safeguard against melting ice and snow) isn’t necessarily a huge factor in warmer states, it would still be beneficial to clean your gutters ahead of the winter months.

The last thing you want is cold winter rain not being able to drain properly from your gutters, which could cause pooling issues on your roof. Pooling water is harmful to your roof’s structural integrity.

Add insulation to your attic

Your attic’s insulation is key to your home’s energy efficiency, particularly during the winter. The main reason for that is that you want to trap your home’s heat inside and not let it escape out through the attic and onto the roof.

Heat escaping from your attic can lead to ice dams, higher energy bills and curling shingles, all problems that you can avoid with adequate attic insulation. If you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself, you can call a roofing company.

Call for your roof inspection today

Now that you know what to do to your roof before winter begins and how to prepare your roof for the winter season, call us at Dallas Cherry Roofing. We can handle all your roofing needs, from debris cleaning to shingle replacement.

Categorised in: Roof Maintenance

This post was written by Writer