Coming up on today's episode, you know Jeff Foxworthy? I'm aware of him. You might

be a redneck. I'm aware of him. I'm a Kentucky boy now, so, yeah, he's my people.

You are going through that list, and I was hearing, if you have a bunch of asphalt

granules, at the bottom of your downspout, you might need a roof inspection. This is

the You Ask the Pros Answer podcast. Do you have questions about an upcoming

exterior contracting project, we've got answers. Welcome to the U .S. The Pros Answer

Podcast.

Hey, welcome to the U .S. The Pros Answer podcast, your questions answered by the

pros you trust. My name is Cole, and I am part of the marketing team at Pro

Exteriors and your host for this show. And joined, as always, today I have owner

and president of Pro Exteriors, Aaron Rogers. What's up, Aaron? Not a whole lot.

Doing pretty well.

tuner. But anyway, listener, viewer, every week on this show,

we tackle a question that either you have asked us as a company or that we as a

homeowner have asked at some point in the past in hopes that we help each other

make a more informed decision when it comes to a home remodeling project.

Today is no different. Aaron, today the question is this does my roof need to be

inspected now before you answer that question you've been doing this for like a

hundred years or so right almost yeah almost like 20 -ish 20 plus years yeah you've

told us in the past you grew up around construction uh your father was in then in

the industry, you just kind of always, since you were old enough to pick up a

hammer, been doing this. That's exactly the way I tell it. Yep. So I would guess

not a whole lot surprises you anymore. Not a whole lot phases you.

But I'm wondering if there is anything rattling around in that brain of yours where

you could recount a time where you went out to inspect somebody's roof, expecting it

to be completely routine only to find that there was something lurking.

we're ending year 20 in business um i have uh been married to my beautiful

beautiful wife mary for uh which is about to be 18 years married um very very soon

uh i have been um i have been going to her mother and father's house for that

entire you know 18 years uh and And, you know, as a creature of habit,

when I'm traveling,

when I'm sitting still, no matter what I'm doing, I pretty much am looking at

roofs. I have a permanent arch in my neck from going like this.

And I was recently asked by my father -in -law if I could come look at his roof.

He thought he had a tab blown up. And again, I'm there all the time.

I've looked at his roof probably at least every week, if not every other week, for

18 years.

We've replaced 20 plus roofs in his neighborhood over the last several years.

But again, I look at roofs all day, every day. I can pretty much stand on the

ground and look at the condition of your roof and tell you whether or not it's at

that point. And I got on his roof, and it was one of the worst condition roofs

I've ever seen that did not appear to be bad from the ground.

So he has a lighter gray roof, and, you know, in lighter grays can be sometimes

harder to see certain types of damage. He also has, you know, some of the black

algae, which most people are familiar with on his roof. So, you know, he had some,

some streaking and some shading in some certain areas. So from the ground, it,

you know, it looked pretty similar to almost every 20 year roof that I get on. So

I saw he had one little dragon's tooth. He has a laminated shingle. He was one

little dragon's tooth that was popped up. So I was like, all right, grabbed the

ladder got to the edge of the roof and i was like oh my lord uh massive granular

loss the shingles were in such poor condition um that i could not walk on any of

the areas that were above like a 512 pitch without basically creating more damage to

the roof every step that i took on the steeper pitched knew it was literally slit

off everywhere that I walked on that roof that wasn't the 512 or lower you could

see where my feet were um and I'm I I honestly was slightly embarrassed to go down

and be like uh you know I know I told you you probably still have some time left

you don't it's time um and then you know my my in -laws are a little bit older so

they have they have a couple of your bedrooms that don't get quite used as often.

So I go downstairs and wouldn't you know it? There's a, there's a stain in one of

the ceilings. And so yeah. So that surprised me a little bit.

So yeah. Not too proud to say I was not on my game with that one. Well,

I appreciate you. Appreciate you, Sharon. And now a word from our sponsor. You heard

it here, folks. local Milton contractor Aaron from pro exterior seen all over town

nobody knows what he's doing has he lost his mind okay okay when you're offering

something that's good you've got to be ready pro exteriors rarely offers a deal this

good so the question does my roof need to be inspected yes just yes okay yes yes

what are some signs that I should be on the lookout for,

I'll be honest with you, I'm not getting up on my roof. It's not happening. I'll

look out the window and see like some of the eaves or whatever. I'll look from the

ground. But what are some of the visual signs that I need to be looking out for

before I call a professional?

So let's start with the easy ones. If you are walking around your yard and you see

a shingle tab that's usually a pretty good sign that something's going on okay um

so something a single tab on the ground okay keep in mind if the shingle tab is

not the same color as the shingle tab that's on your roof there's a high

probability it came for your neighbor's roof okay because that does happen we've

shown up to houses where they go hey i've got some shingles off found a bunch in

the yard the tabs they have are red and we get there and their roof is blue. So

if you see shingle tabs on the ground, obviously pretty good sign that there's

something going on. If you see a lot of granules and stuff kind of piling up at

the bottom of your downspouts, if you have the little rain diverters at the bottom

of your downspouts, granules will pile up there pretty consistently.

If you look up on your roof and you see anything kind of popped up, If you look

up on your roof and you see anything kind of caved in, if you ever go in,

if you're not comfortable getting on your roof, most people have an attic access. If

you live in kind of a builder production home, you probably have a little hats that

still requires a ladder to get into. But if you live in a house that has like an

actual attic access ladder that she can pop down, at least once a year you should

be popping up in your attic space. I realize that not all addicts are completely

accessible, especially if your house was framed with trusses. You're not going to be

able to access everything. But at least poke your head up there. Go up there during

the daylight, turn the attic lights off, turn all the other lights off and see if

you see any daylight popping through. That's always the easy way to tell if

something's going on. So you know Jeff Foxworthy? I'm aware of him. You might be a

redneck. I'm aware of him. I'm a Kentucky boy now. So he's my people. You are

going through that list. You are going through that

spring and fall why um so cooler temperatures makes it a little easier on us rufers

so it's nice for us to get up there when the temperatures aren't scalding it's nice

to get up there when the temperatures aren't super cold either in the summertime

when the shingles are at their hottest point it makes it somewhat difficult for us

to access certain things without potentially causing damage you know when that when

the shingles are super, super hot,

the asphalt underneath of them heats up. And the granules that are kind of embedded

into that asphalt can slide right off if depending on what shoes you're wearing or

what the pitch is. So that could give you some false sense of security.

Yep. Right. It sounds like there's never a bad time to have your roof inspected.

If we're talking seasonally, yeah, middle of winter, middle of summer, probably not

the best time. But number of years,

notice that stuff the best time to fix it is as soon as you notice it so if you

take years in between inspections a lot can happen in those years and with

especially with newer homes that are built say like after 1998 we have a lot of

insulation in the attic basin i have seen houses that have been leaking for years

but the way that the insulation was installed and the vapor barriers and other stuff

that were installed on houses kind of hid those leaks people never got in their

attic space they never went on their roof and it wasn't until they looked up and

they saw what looked like a ginormous crater in their roof that they realized

anything was going on so every year if your roof was put on last year have it

inspected this year uh another thing that we run into all the time is you know we

do run into brand new roofs that were extremely poorly installed we deal with a lot

of builder roofs where they use you know the cheapest products and the cheapest

labor that they can get their hands on where those roofs you know the guys

installed it i mean is it their fault yes is it also not their fault correct uh

set if you're trying to if you're trying to make you know trying to make a living

and the guy that's paying you is paying you you know four hundred dollars a day to

go put as many singles on as you possibly can.

the best installation or it is the only it is the only acceptable area to nail a

shingle in order to maintain warranty and also adhere to the manufacturer instructions

it's called the common bond and laminate shingles it's called the common bond it's

the only area that you can nail that technically goes through both the top and

bottom layer of the shingle uh with three tabs we can call it the strike zone they

don't really have a common bond, but it's, I mean, you still kind of call it that.

Okay. I was honestly not expecting to hear the every year thing, and that makes me

realize that I have neglected.

I've neglected things.

Could you walk me through what a typical inspection looks like?

All right, so I know as a company, we free roof inspections if if i have bradder

keith or you come out what is entailed in that what goes into an inspection yeah

uh so yeah so the first thing we do is uh we put the ladder up against the

gutters um we get up to the edge of the roof and the first thing we're going to

look for is anything that's missing and when i say what's missing so we're going to

look for missing products and then also missing shingles.

So, you know, we normally do an exterior walk around. We're going to try and see

what we can see from the ground first. If we see any missing shingles, you know,

we make sure we look at them a little bit closer. But when we get to the Eve,

the first thing we want to look at is we want to look at the bottom row. Is

there an actual starter strip? Is there ice and water shield or leak barrier?

They're the same product, but they're called two different things.

So it is code for everybody to have ice and water shield or leak barrier along the

eaves, as well as the valleys. Those are the only two areas that are code required

to have leak barrier. We want to look at it as a proper starters trip. A proper

starter trip is meant for starter. It is not meant to be a field shingle.

A field shingle is not meant to be a starter strip.

the next thing before we leave the eve the next thing we want to look at is the

drip edge and gutter relationship is the gutter behind the drip edge or is the

gutter over the drip edge uh one of the most common leaks we see at the gutter is

the uh water backs up behind the gutter it drips out between it it gets behind the

fascia sometimes and rots out the two two by six sub fascia. We deal with that a

lot. And it's all because the relationship between the drip edge and the gutter

isn't correct. All of that can be mitigated with like adding a gutter apron. Pretty

simple fix. But it's a very small miss detail on a lot of houses. So once we get

on the roof, we're going to look at pretty much every single product. You know,

we're going to go through. Do we see, you know, low nails or shiners? A lot of

times if you look up,

don't typically know how to install them properly new construction homes a lot of

times what we deal with was a roofer puts the roof on all of the pipes and vents

and everything are put on by the other trade contractors and not the roofer so

we'll see the plumber come behind the roofer drill a hole up through the roof and

they'll stub the pipe through and they'll go up there and they'll you know make

their way through putting a pipe boot on plumbers are not supposed to put pipe

boots on um plumbers are not supposed to put bath fans on the on the roof so uh

and then from there you know we'll start looking at all of our flashing details any

anywhere that has step flashing anywhere that has end wall flashing um you know

we're going to go inspect there and then as we're kind of walking over the entire

roof the number one issue that we run into is improper nailing 95 % of all warranty

issues for pretty much every manufacturer for singles.

inspect the nailing um but yeah so we want to look at all those little details

skylights a lot of people have a really uh negative opinion of skylights because

they are sewn prone to leaking

but skylights don't leak poor installations leak so most of the skylights that we

deal with that are leaking are because the install was awful um so one of the

jokes we always make is uh every bundle of shingles has the installation instructors

printed on them so when you screw it up you literally cut through the installation

instructions in order to get to the shingles and it's the same way with skylights

when you open the box the skylight it has the installation instructions right there

with it but people screw it up all day, every day. So we do

leak it's always been a poor installation and i've seen skylights that literally you

couldn't see the metal flashing because there were so much caulk and tar around them

um that were still leaking so yeah but those are the things we'll look at from the

top side from the bottom side um yeah it's more so just to make sure everything is

in place where it's supposed to be making sure everything was nailed or flash

properly it's very rare that you can't get on every single

It doesn't matter how good the install is. If I want to fail somebody, I'll fail

them because he'll always find something. It could be one nail out of place. It's a

failure. I know that they said it about cops. If a cop follows you long enough,

you're eventually going to make a traffic infraction that he's going to get you.

Just to kind of recap where we've gone so far, to answer the question, does my

roof need to be inspected? Yes, it does. How often, yearly. Best times of the year,

the moderate times of the year. So spring, fall. Summer's not great because it can

hide some of the underlying issues. Winter's not great because everything's brittle

and icy. I see. It's also just not pleasant to be up there.

Maintenance. So

Inspection is part of maintaining your roof because it's going to call out the

things that are wrong. Are there some of the, just quickly, what are some of the

simple things as a homeowner I could be doing to maintain the roof to give it the

longest possible life? Yeah, absolutely. So there are some portions of your roof

where we don't really have a choice. We have to have nails that are exposed in

order to secure like the last cap shingle and you know sometimes in issues with end

wall flashing and stuff there's nails that are going to be more exposed than they

would be if it was just say a field shingle so we do rely on caulk some companies

do what's called sugaring which is where you literally take you kind of get a

handful of the extra granules that fall off in the packaging or as you're doing the

roof, a bunch of granules will kind of fall down into the gutters and you go scoop

them up. You put the cock down and then you sugar the granules over top of the

corks so it blends a little bit better. But, you know, that caulking, use a good

cock at a last, we'll say a lifetime in reality.

But, you know, your home settles, things move, wind events, rain events. So getting

up there and, you know, checking all of your exposed caulking and making sure that

all of that's tight. Keeping your roof clean is another thing that I think some

people fail to realize. So if you live in an area where let's say you have a

little bit lower slope of a pitch, a little bit of a lower pitch to your roof and

you have trees and things around it, you may put gutter guards on there to protect

your gutters, but oftentimes debris will kind of accumulate and sit on your

you know now's the time to basically clean all that debris off there sometimes you

have to physically you know manhandle the debris depending on how much is up there

or you may just be able to get a leaf blower um and just blow it off that way

uh cleaning out your gutters is always a good you know proper water flow is always

ideal uh i have seen gutters fail because they get a lot of build up in them

water sits there water freezes it expands and goes back up into the shingles or it

gets behind the fascia and gets into the sub fascia board um and then you know

dumb things you know you have a lot of products up there that expand and contract

so every year as the seasons go through you anything that has rubber in it should

be inspected um and then the other thing to look for is uh you know rodents

insects squirrels all All right, Aaron, if as a homeowner, I'm not feeling

comfortable getting up on my roof, like I already said to you, I'm not going to do

it.

Most reputable rooferes will come out and take a look at your roof, right?

Typically, and many of them won't charge for that. If you are

this and you to this and you happen to live in our service area so if you're in

southern Delaware the eastern shore of Maryland reach out to us we'd be glad to

come out and when I say we I don't mean me one of our guys would be happy to

come out and inspect your roof you can go to ask proexteriors .com or you can give

tabby a call in the office at 302 664 1700, and we'd be glad to get a time

scheduled to come out and take a look at things. Aaron, as always, thank you for

your experience and sharing that story at the outset of this episode.

No need to be embarrassed. All right, let me go ahead.

We're going to wrap this up, and then we'll be done. That is all we have for you

today on the You Ask the Pros answer podcast.

If you know somebody that's a new homeowner, somebody that's looking to do a

remodeling project of any kind, just say, hey, I found this and it's been helpful

to me. Also, this show does not exist without you and your questions.

If you have questions about an upcoming exterior remodeling project or anything about

your house, would you send them to us at info at Askproexteriors .com,

and then in the subject line, put You Ask. We would love to feature your question

on an upcoming episode. Hey, if you are facing an upcoming home project,

we hope this episode has empowered you to tackle it with confidence. Remember,

knowledge is power, and a little bit of research can go a long way. Until next

time, happy home owning. The You Ask the Pro's Answer podcast is produced in -house

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