Roof replacement or roof repair. It’s a debate that homeowners are facing when they discover damage has been done to their roofing. But the decision to choose one over the other isn’t as cut and dry as it might appear at first glance.
Your local roofers marietta offer these important contributing factors that can help you go in one direction over another. This is an important and potentially costly choice you’re about to make and you want to be sure you’re getting it right the first time. It will help to avoid you paying more than you need to do by incurring further expenses down the line.
How Old Is The Roof?
The age of the roof is an important factor in deciding whether to repair or replace. If the roof is around five or six years old, you should probably repair it since you should still have plenty of life left in it. But for those homeowners with a roof that’s fifteen or twenty years old, it’s probably time to replace it. That’s because much older roofing is probably going to get damaged again shortly after you repair it.
Does The Roof Have Water Damage?
Your roof has been designed to withstand the natural wear and tear that can come from harsh weather in the form of heavy precipitation, hot sun, high wind, and minor impacts from sticks, branches, and leaves from neighboring trees. Over time, your shingles may start to show signs of all that wear and tear with small cracks, minor fractures, and shingles that have shifted in place.
If those things have occurred, you may be getting water and moisture in the layers of the roof and that will play a big role in deciding to repair or replace. The only way to know is to check for any serious water damage in any of the components that make up the roof.
A roof can take a lot of punishment but if there is water or moisture damage underneath the layers or along the roof supports, you can’t just add new shingles to fix the issue. A replacement may be the only way to eliminate all of the existing damage so your roof is secure and your home is safe from the elements.
The Extent Of The Repair Needed
Consider where the roof has been damaged and what needs to be fixed. Small repair jobs don’t usually warrant a full-scale replacement of the entire roof. These small repairs can sometimes even be performed by a particularly handy homeowner or, if you hire professional help, shouldn’t be too costly to get fixed.
But if there’s a massive section of the roof that needs to be addressed, the sheer size of the surface that needs to be repaired might be telling you that you should replace it instead. A good rule of thumb is to consider the size in terms of percentage of roof affected. If the extent of the damage covers more than 25% of the roof, you will likely end up replacing it.