Roofing Integrity and Drainage

If you're going to buy or sell a home in the Sacramento Area, there are certain things you need to attend to before you pass papers. The appearance of your roof is important. It's one of the things that potential buyers will look at before they'll make an offer. If you're the buyer, you'll definitely want to see what the topside of the house looks like before you drop a few thousand dollars down for a deposit. That's prudent, but do you know what to look for? What looks good on the outside could be rotten on the inside.  

The integrity of a roof is determined by the boards and support beams under it, not the shingles on top. The covering is important, and ultimately it protects what lies beneath, but if the boards that you nail shingles into aren't solid, you will have problems later on. That layer of tar paper we use to cover the wooden portion of your roof won't withstand a major water invasion if the ceiling under it collapses

 under the weight. Sometimes, it won't even be visible from the outside. Your first indication there's a problem will be the flooding that hits your upper floors. 

Drainage is as important on your roof as it is on the ground below. The pitch of the roof is supposed to allow water to flow from the peak down to the ground, but there are gutters along the bottom edge of the roof that catch the water and funnel it to a drain pipe and spout down below – if the system is working properly.

If not, water can pool in the gutters and well up beneath the shingles, causing problems.

If your drain pipes are clogged and water isn't reaching the spouts below that send water down a graded path away from the house, water will flow over the edge of the gutters and pool on non-graded surfaces below, a common cause of basement flooding. If that's what you're experiencing now, stop looking down below for a solution. The problem is up top. Call Our Carmichael Roofing Company and we'll solve it for you.