Rental Property Roof Maintenance Tips for Landlords

Wednesday, 25 August 2021 09:40

Proper roof maintenance should be an integral part of your rental property maintenance. Your rental’s roof plays a key role in attracting new tenants to the property and helps you retain old ones. Roof maintenance is essential for keeping the operating costs of the building under control. After all, everything that happens to the roof can send ripple effects through the rest of the building.

Why is your roofing so important? Roofs provide three important things for a rental property:

  1. The roof on your rental property is the most important structure for protecting the home from the onslaught of the elements. It shields the building from the searing heat of the sun and the effects of wind, rain, and snow. It protects, not just the structures of the building, but the people who live in it and their belongings.
  2. The roof is a vital part of the building envelope, as it works in tandem with other parts of the building to create the home’s internal climate. If the roof loses its insulating properties, cooling and heating costs will fly through the roof (no pun intended). A faulty roof will affect occupants’ comfort, thereby impairing the performance of your rental.
  3. The roof is also a vital part of what creates your rental’s curb appeal. A dirty or deteriorating roof makes a less than perfect first-time impression on potential renters. The same applies if the roof is sporting plant growths or the gutters and others parts of the roofing structure are damaged.

As a landlord, your focus is on minimizing costs while maximizing revenue. So, what do you need to know about rental property roof maintenance?

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Important Tips For Maintaining The Roof Of Your Rental Property

There are two ways to approach roof maintenance or any type of building maintenance:

  1. Corrective maintenance: This is reactive maintenance that is done after problems have occurred. When you do corrective maintenance, you don’t follow a schedule. Instead, your maintenance efforts are dictated by faults that appear. In other words, you must wait until a leak becomes apparent before you take action.
  2. Preventive maintenance: This is proactive maintenance that anticipates problems and works to solve them before they become major issues. When you do preventive maintenance, you try to avoid damage as much as possible. You preempt damage by identifying the early warning signs of trouble and fixing them.

Clearly, preventive maintenance is the better way to look after the roof of a rental property. From the perspective of cost, preventive maintenance helps you avoid the additional damage that would happen if problems are allowed to proceed to their logical end. It is also better for ensuring the comfort of your tenants too.

How To Do Preventive Roof Maintenance

The foundation of preventive roof maintenance is regular roof inspections. To be effective, roof inspections must be done on a schedule, they must be comprehensive, and they must be thorough. To make sure the inspection meets these criteria, you should have a roof inspection checklist.

The checklist ensures that:

  • You do not have to depend on memory or habit to decide what you should inspect.
  • It helps you to focus on the more obvious or pressing issues.
  • It ensures that no part of the structure is overlooked since the inspection is methodical.
  • It imposes discipline by removing emotions and assumptions from the task.

By following a checklist, you significantly reduce the possibility of emergencies with your rental property’s roof. But in order for the inspection checklist to do all that it is meant to do, it must be prepared by a professional, or better still, the roof inspection should be done by a roof maintenance expert. A roofing expert will know both where to look and what to look for during their inspection.

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Important Things To Do During A Roof Inspection

1. Clean The Roof

All debris like twigs, leaves, grit, and growths should be removed. Accumulated debris makes it easier for moisture to remain on the roof surface.

2. Clear The Drains

Keeping gutters and downspouts clean and in good shape preserves the appearance of the roof and protects the external walls, as well as the internal roof structures.

3. Inspect The Roof Surface

A complete and systematic visual inspection of the entire surface is essential. Possible problems to look out for include holes, cracks, and missing components.

4. Check roof penetrations

These are features that protrude through the roof surface (e.g., chimneys, vents, etc). These structures are often the places where leaks are likely to happen.

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5. Check roof perimeter

These are the components around the roof’s perimeter like fascia, flashing, and curbs. These should be inspected for signs of moisture infiltration, mold, algae, and damage.

6. Inspect caulking and sealant

Sealant and caulking are used to keep components watertight and glued together. Depending on several factors, they may start to deteriorate.

7. Check for signs of possible leaks

Discovering signs of wear and tear before they turn into serious leaks will save you thousands of dollars in repair and replacement costs.

8. Do required additional inspections

If any issues are uncovered during the routine inspection, they should be followed up on immediately.

Book A Roof Inspection For Your Rental Properties In Denver

Roof maintenance is clearly important for your rental property. If you are a landlord and the roof of your rentals needs some repairs, you've come to the right place.

At Ethos Roofing & Restoration, we have been restoring, repairing, and replacing roofs for several decades. We'll perform a comprehensive and entirely FREE inspection of your entire property to identify all instances of damage and identify the root cause behind it. We'll then provide expert recommendations on your most appropriate next steps.

Contact Ethos Roofing & Restoration today to schedule your FREE roofing inspection for your rental properties in Denver.