5 Roofing Upgrades that can Make You Feel Proud
While you may not consider re-roofing a very exciting home improvement, you’ll agree that it’s a very important one. Roofs are not the parts of the house that homeowners take pride in showing off to their guests. If you have finally made up your mind to reroof your home, you would like to choose among some prominent upgrades and you will realize that even reroofing can be exciting! Here are a few such upgrades.
1. Installation of an Airtight Chimney Cap
Unlike metal and masonry chimney caps that are meant for driving rain and birds and other critters (if screened) away from your chimney, airtight caps are designed to save energy.
When you are not using your fireplace, warm air inside your home is actually gushing out from the chimney in cold weather. The damper in your firebox can do only a little to stop it since it is not airtight.
Choose a roofer like a Dearborn, Michigan roofing repair and replacement contractor, and ask them about fitting an airtight chimney cap while the re-roofing work is in progress. These units are spring-operated. To open them, you just have to tug on a steel cable attached to a bracket on the inner side of your fireplace. After your fire is totally out, pull it shut.
Besides saving energy, an airtight cap does an additional work of preventing animals from nesting inside your chimney.
2. Installation of Eave Flashing
If you have undergone the damage from an ice dam, you might be interested in investing a little extra while reroofing to fit in eave flashing. These are peel-and-stick bituminous membranes and are applied before shingling to a depth of 2 feet inside the outer wall plane (for low-pitched roofs, it should be 3 feet). The membranes seal on their own around roofing fasteners, creating a watertight seal over the eaves, that are parts of the roof most vulnerable to ice dams. Bituminous eave flashing can also be used for other susceptible roof areas, e.g. around dormers and skylights and over valleys.
3. Improvement of Roof Ventilation
If they are not well ventilated, attics turn into furnaces in summer. And then the heat transfers to the rooms that are straight below the attic, making them uncomfortably hot. To make your attic and rooms below it cooler, make sure your contractor, such as a Dearborn, Michigan roofing repair and replacement contractor, installs ridge vents along the top of your roof. Ridge vents are hardly discernible from the street and allow movement of air beneath the ridge cap shingles. For effective ventilation, soffit vents placed under the eaves take cooler air inside the attic while hot air is thrown out. Gable vents placed near the roof peak of outer walls, may also be required to ensure sufficient airflow. A cooler attic keeps your home more comfortable in summer without needing to splurge on air conditioning.
4. Energy-efficient Shingles
For a cooler roof usually light-coloured or white shingles were recommended to homeowners. However, they were not always aesthetically appealing. Today new reflective shingles are available in assorted colours, ranging from popular wood to slate tones. Their granules not only reflect sun’s rays but also quickly reemit most of the heat absorbed. Based on your home’s construction and climate, such an energy-efficient roof can save from 7% to 15% of your cooling costs.
5. Low-maintenance Gutters
Reroofing is an opportunity to replace your old gutters with new ones, particularly if your old gutters are misaligned and unsightly. Gutters with built-in curved hoods are maintenance-free. This design works on the scientific principle of water adhesion, letting rainwater to pass down and around its curved hood and in the gutter while repelling leaves. This eliminates clogs and ugly-looking stains on gutters and siding because of gutter overflow. It also eliminates the messy and dangerous task of climbing a ladder for cleaning the gutters.
If you do one, some or all these upgrades to your roof, your new roof may become a matter of pride for you just like the rest of the revamp of your home.
