How Summer Heat Affects Your Roof

Which season is the hardest on your roof? The wet weather and cold temperatures of winter? The high winds of fall? These are fairly good answers, and they’re not exactly wrong—both of these factors can cause damage to a roof. However, many people are often unaware of just how much damage summer’s sweltering heat and unrelenting sunlight can do to a roof. If your roof starts to leak and you discover it during the winter, odds are the leak actually developed during summer because of one of a number of reasons. Here are just a few of them.

Why Summer Causes Damage

Sunlight may be warm and inviting, making life on Earth possible in the first place. But sunlight also has a number of harmful effects in mass quantities due to the types of radiation it contains. Notably, sunlight is full of ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which is invisible to the human eye but can deal immense damage to most anything left in it.

Over time, anything left exposed to ultraviolet radiation will begin to break down and degrade, including your roof. This means the tiles on your roof will become more brittle and porous, the underlayment stiff and cracked, and the wood structure weak and splintered. High-quality roofing tiles can help negate this effect for some time, but eventually even the most durable of roofs will finally give out.

Additionally, the heat and wide temperature swings of the summer months can also deal damage. As the materials of your roof heat up during the day, they expand, growing slightly larger. As they cool, they contract back down towards their normal size again. This constant cycle of expansion and contraction is known as thermal shock. Different materials will react differently to thermal shock, and some are certainly better-suited to it than others, but over time this will contribute to any roof wearing out. Eventually, thermal shock could cause splits or cracks to form in your roof, leading to leaks and potentially costly repairs.

Avoiding Summer Sun Damage

So now that you’ve learned why the sun can damage your roof, how can you prevent it? The first step is to take care of the roof you already have. Cleaning your roof is a task you should perform annually, usually during spring time to remove any debris that may have collected on the roof during the winter rains. This will also give you an opportunity to clean out your rain gutters, allowing them to flow properly which can prevent substantial damage to your roof as well.

You should also have your roof inspected by a professional Tulsa roofer at the very least every two to three years, and even more frequently if your roof is older or nearing the end of its life. A professional has the training and experience to spot any minor issues before they become serious, possibly saving you thousands in expensive repairs by handling the problem early. An inspection service can also include some minor repairs, including replacing loose or missing shingles, repairing worn flashing, and more.

What you absolutely should not do is neglect your roof. Neglecting to repair or maintain your roof causes damage to snowball and grow worse and worse quickly. Eventually, a roof that’s left unmaintained will eventually cause serious damage to your home, or worse, fail entirely. However, with proper maintenance and a regular inspection, you can make your roof last many additional years, or even decades beyond one that doesn’t receive this regular care, which saves you money and keeps your home protected.

T-Town Roofing can help you with all your residential and commercial roofing needs! With over 30 years of experience, our highly-trained and certified technicians can inspect and maintain your roof to keep it in top shape for many years to come. We are fully licensed and insured, as well as certified by numerous manufacturers such as GAF, CertainTeed, Tamko, and more! We are proud of our reputation as one of the area’s top roofers, including earning a coveted A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.