Know Your Slope Before Doing Roof Repairs

When it comes to our homes, we are famous for trying to repair and improve them ourselves. This DIY generation now really has no choice in this regard. The current economic miseries make it financially difficult to hire professionals some times

As a weekend home repair warrior, you already know a few things. There are certain parts of a home that lend themselves to repairs and other areas that can tax even old pros. With DIY projects, it is vital to know which is which.

Doing roofing work is one area that is typically shied away from when it comes to DIY work. If your roof is less than thirty years old, doing a DIY project can be a huge mistake. Why? You could be breaking the warranty on the roof.

As your common sense is probably suggesting, the fact you are up in the air also makes DIY roofing projects sketchy at best. Every year, someone falls off and breaks their neck. Heck, this happens to professional roofers frequently.

Assuming you are going to go ahead with your roofing project, it is vital that you understand certain elements of roofing. One of the key factors that is often misunderstood is the slope of a roof.

What is slope? As the name suggests, it is the angle at which a particular area of roof proceeds from the vertical plain. Put another way, the slope is the number of vertical inches of drop every 12 inches of horizontal measurement.

When it comes to roofing, understanding slope is everything. Water is a destroyer. If you get your slope wrong, particularly where two sections of roof come together, you can get water in the wrong place and incur very expensive repairs.

The second thing most people do not understand about slopes is they define the roof. Huh? The slope on a roof is a restrictor. It establishes the specific type of roofing system that can be used. Okay, how about an example to make it clear?

What if we have a roof with a slope of 2 and 12? This means it drops 2 inches for every 12 horizontally. That is not much of a slope. As such, we probably want to avoid using shingles because the water will pool and flow back up under them causing leaks.

You might be wondering a bit about the pitch of the roof. Do not worry about it. Pitch is a word used for slope in some areas of the country. They are the same thing, so you can use whichever is appropriate for your location.

With DIY roofing projects, knowledge goes a long way. Make sure you have a grasp of what is involved before you jump into the fray. Getting the slope right will go a long way to a successfully completed job. Getting it wrong can be a disaster.

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