Welcome to Family Roofing

CALL OR EMAIL US TODAY FOR YOUR FREE ESTIMATE – 202-276-5004   FAMILY.ROOFING@YAHOO.COM

 

At Family Roofing, we take great pride in our experience, expertise, quality and customer service. It is our mission to provide excellent workmanship and complete customer satisfaction from start to completion of a project. Our reputation is based on service, safety and quality, regardless of how large or small the job.

 

MAINTAINING YOUR ROOF FLASHING

It’s hard to say if there’s a more important part of your home than the roof.  It keeps you safe and protected from the elements, but even more importantly, it keeps all the materials used to construct your house dry, too. That means you won’t have to worry about anything rotting or wearing out—and best of all, you won’t have to make repairs.  One way to ensure that your roof is as sturdy and long-lasting as possible is to maintain one of the most integral parts of your roof system—the flashing.  It’s sometime best to play it safe and hire a local roofing contractor to help you with this project.

Roof flashing is used to tie two elements of architecture together, eliminating a seam that could otherwise cause leakage and/or rot.  As such, it is an important element of your home whose importance is often underestimated.  From time to time, this flashing will require a little bit of maintenance.

What is Flashing?

Flashing is the protective metal tie-in material used on homes and other construction projects to prevent water damage from occurring.  It comes in a range of types: you can track down aluminum, copper, lead, PVC, and galvanized steel flashing to name a few options.  It’s very thin material that comes on a simple roll—and it’s one of the keys to a long-lasting project that won’t wear out before it should.

Types of Flashing

First, you need to recognize the types of flashing used in a typical sloped roof:

Valley flashing is the most common type of roof flashing.  It is a strip of metal with a profile shaped like an inverted “T”.  Valley flashing is usually found in roof valleys, or where two roofing planes meet.  The vertical fin acts as a barrier that prevents rainwater from flowing from one roofing plane and under another.

Continuous and step flashing are installed where the roofing plane meets dormers and walls.  Continuous flashing is installed on the side that’s parallel to the roof, while step flashing is installed on the sloped sides.  The “steps” follow the overlaps on asphalt shingles.

Drip edges are installed along the roof’s edge.  The inverted L-shaped profile prevents rainwater from seeping back into the roof deck through capillary action.

Rubber boots, also known as vent pipe flashing, are cone-shaped rubber flashing installed at the base of vent pipes.  The cone is trimmed to match the pipe diameter during installation.

Roof Inspections

All manner of roofing work, including roof repair and maintenance, must be conducted by a roofing professional.  Roof inspections are different.  Call a professional if or when you find a problem.

 

 

How To Check The Flashing

In most cases, you will need to carefully consider the safety issues before you even check the flashing.  You might be able to use binoculars to check your roof from below (or a window), but it’s hard to get a complete view of things in that way.  To properly inspect your home’s flashing, you will need to invest in a good ladder, and it will need to be large enough to reach the roof.  One thing to note here: If your roof’s slope is too steep to climb, do not attempt to check the flashing yourself.  You will need to hire the services of a professional. It might be a little bit expensive, but a broken neck is a lot more so.

What To Look For When Checking The Flashing

Here is a shortlist of the things you want to check out and examine when checking the flashing.

• Most flashing will have caulk around its edges.  This serves as another seal against moisture, but it tends to degrade over time. Look for peeling, cracking, pitted spots, and missing beads.  This is probably the most common flashing maintenance job.  Naturally, this can be fixed by peeling off the old caulk and applying a new layer.

• Roof flashing is most often made of aluminum, which is used for its anti-corrosion properties.  That’s a fancy way of saying that it doesn’t rust.  Unfortunately, it is not as durable as steel.  When it cracks or breaks, you will need to replace the section.

• Flashing is attached with nails or screws, and both of these can wiggle themselves loose over time.  This happens because of the natural flexing of wood.  As it heats and cools, it bends very slightly, as does the attached flashing.  If you see any raised nail or screw heads, pound or tighten them down.

• Aluminum may not rust, but it can become discolored if it gets dirty.  If the flashing has lost most or all of its shine, it is probably due for a good cleaning.

• Obviously, missing pieces of flashing are a serious problem that can only be fixed with replacement.

• Sometimes, flashing can peel away from its seal.  It might look fine from far away, but it has lost that essential bond between sealer and surface.  Add more caulk to fix this one.

How To Maintain Roof Flashing

Prevention is always better than repair because you keep the problem from occurring in the first place.  Here are some simple maintenance tasks that you can do from time to time if you want to keep your roof flashing in good shape.

• At least once a year, you should give the roof flashing a little cleaning.

• At least once a year, you or a trusted professional should inspect your roof flashing closely.  This might be done as part of a total roof inspection, or as a separate job (depending on your needs).  There are a lot of problems that will not be found until you get a close look.

• Even if you don’t see any obvious problems, it’s a good idea to re-do the caulking around the outside of your flashing once in a while.  Once every two years should be sufficient, but areas with extreme weather might require more frequent replacement.

Locating Leaks

Most of the time when you notice a leak around a chimney or at the corners of your roofing, it’s because of issues with your flashing installation.  These problems often require professional intervention.  Take a close look around your home and crawl up in your attic to see if you can spot the exact location that’s suffering from a leak.

Lock it Down

It’s common for flashing to become loose and even removed from your home over time.  Either the screws anchoring it into place become loose and pull out, or the metal wears away from around the edge of the hole where the flashing was initially locked down.  Either way, that leaves flashing loose and unable to properly perform its job. T

Fill Holes

Even though flashing is designed to be weather resistant, there are times when corrosion or wear will cause small holes to occur.  If this happens, you don’t have to completely replace your flashing; you simply have to cover up that hole.

Re-caulk Your Chimney Flashing

Flashing is tied into the mortar of the chimney itself to form a waterproof barrier.  Over time, the mortar can crack and crumble—and it’ll need to be updated in order to continue providing that protection.  Work away any of the cracked mortar using a stone chisel and then apply a new layer of mortar caulk in place of the worn mortar.  While doing this, be careful to cover the flashing entirely and to fill in the chimney gap completely between the brick or stone.

Conclusion

As you can see, this isn’t a particularly hard matter.  Roof flashing doesn’t tend to need a whole lot of maintenance, but it’s still important to understand the basics.  Your roof flashing represents an important barrier between the inner part of your home and the elements.  As such, a flashing problem can be a very serious one. Even a small leak can cause problems over time, so keep your eye on the ball.