Your roof is the main shelter from natural elements. You need to ensure that it is performing at its best at all times to not only protect and maintain the home it's covering, but to also save you from the cost of repairing or replacing it. With this in mind, you should know the kind of things that can endanger the integrity of your roof.

Heat

UV rays can easily damage your roof. Heat damage appears as bumps, cracks, curling, and discoloration on your roofing material. These in turn can cause other issues, like leaks and the shingles breaking off.

How do you protect your roof from heat damage? To start, if you live in a location that is prone to heat, you might consider changing your roofing material. Metal roofing, for instance, is great for heat-prone zones as it offers a cooling effect. Changing your roofing material to metal roofing could also save you the energy used in cooling the house.

Additionally, you can have a roofing contractor help you coat and seal your roof to enable it to handle UV rays better. Painting the roof white could also work to fend off harmful UV rays that might damage the roof. Installing vapor barriers could also help decrease moisture caused by the heat.

Snow and Ice

Snow seems like a soft element that could cause little to no harm to your roof. What most people don't seem to realize is that not only is snow wet, it's also heavy. This makes it even more dangerous than rain. The weight can cause damage to the structure of the roof, not to mention icicles that could be hanging from the gutters.

Besides weight damage, snow can cause ice dams to form in the eaves of your roof. Ice dams are caused when your roof is unevenly heated. If the upper part of your roof is warm, it can melt the snow in the middle of your roof, causing the water to flow and collect at the eaves. Here, because it is not as warm as the attic, the water freezes and expands causing damage to the shingles.

How do you solve this? Your local roof contractor's services should find a way of melting the snow evenly so there is no ice dam formation. This can also ensure your roof is evenly heated.  A roofer will be able to help you decide which type of roof would best suit your home.

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