The Budget Says It All: Why Annual Roof Maintenance is a Necessity

Too many people neglect roofing maintenance. Frankly, too many people forget about their roof and ignore it entirely until there’s a reason to pay attention to it – until there’s a problem. Some people are apathetic about their roofs because they don’t have the time or energy for the maintenance, but many people neglect their roofs because they feel like they don’t have the money for the maintenance.

If money is your concern, sticking to a routine maintenance schedule can help you avoid a lot of costly roof repair. In the end, you would actually come out far ahead of where you would be if you did no maintenance at all – in financial terms. Here’s a look at why roof maintenance is so important to your bottom line:

The Cost of a New Roof

A new roof is one of the most expensive things you will buy for your home or business. A new commercial roof can cost around $40,000 for an average 10,000-square-foot roof, though the material you choose can alter this price significantly. A new residential roof can cost you $10,000 or more.

How long the roof lasts depends on the material used for it and the maintenance it gets. Even a roof that is designed to last a few decades will have a shorter life span if you don’t maintain it. When your roof needs to be replaced prematurely, you will be spending thousands (or tens of thousands) earlier than you should have.

The Cost of Maintenance

Roof repairs aren’t cheap, but as we’ve discussed, neither is replacing a roof. You can avoid both roof repair and a new roof installation (or put them off longer, anyway) by sticking to a consistent schedule of maintenance.

On average, a roof maintenance program costs about 1 percent to 3 percent of the total cost of a new roof installation each year. When you think of it that way, roof maintenance is actually quite affordable.

By keeping up with a maintenance program, you can extend your roof’s life by many years. In some cases, you could even double your roof’s life span. That’s especially true in a place like Phoenix, where extreme temperatures and monsoons put a beating on roofs and leave them needing to be repaired or replaced more frequently.

Keep in mind that, in some municipalities, you can also deduct the cost of a roof maintenance program from your taxes, which will save you even more money.

What to Include in Roof Maintenance

For a roof maintenance program to be effective in saving you money and extending the life of your roof, it needs to include certain things. To start, a roofing contractor should thoroughly inspect the roof for signs of damage or wear. The contractor should inspect every aspect of the roof, and should look for signs of potential future problems, such as granules from the shingles in the gutters or moss on the roof.
The residential roofer should give you detailed information about the findings, including photographic evidence to help you understand the roof’s condition and what’s needed. Roof repair should be made quickly if it’s needed.

Other routine maintenance can include tightening or realigning the gutter system, cleaning moss from the roof, tightening flashing, patching cracked seals, or repairing loose shingles or tile. The roof may not yet need repair, but these are signs that it would need repair soon, so making these minor corrections can save you a lot of trouble down the road.

Don’t consider maintenance to be a costly chore that you can skip to save money. Maintenance is vital to a healthy roof, and if you are consistent with it, you will actually save a lot of money over time. So, if you really care about smart money management, you will call a roofing services company and set up a roof maintenance program for your property now.
Canyon State Roofing can help. Our experienced and highly trained roofers repair and maintain roofs throughout the Phoenix area, including both residential and commercial roofing. We can set up a system that will protect your roof and give it the longest possible life span. We also perform roof repair when it’s needed, and we can perform re-roofing when it’s time. Call us in Phoenix today to talk to a roofing contractor or to schedule an estimate.