Many homeowners know very little about roofs or roofing materials. The best way to protect your roof is to become informed. To become informed, you need to start at the basics of roof repair. It is important to have a grasp of the basic elements involved in roof repair. Those elements would consist of the following:
A thorough inspection of the entire roof: It is critically important to inspect the entire surface of your roof for damage. If you limit your inspection to specific portions of your roof you could miss other problem areas that are not easily detectable. The inspection should include verifying that the roof material is securely bonded to the underlying substrate and that all fasteners (nails, screws, etc) are in place and intact. Any suspect areas or materials should be marked for repair or replacement.
Surface preparation: Once the areas to be repaired have been identified, it is time to prepare the surfaces of those identified areas. In order to accept any patching/sealing materials all applicable surfaces must be clean, dry and free of contaminates.
Repair and patching: Once all identified surface areas have been cleaned and dried the next step is to patch and seal all areas that were identified during the inspection process. There are a variety of patch/seal materials available on the market today. Most of those require 24 to 48 hours to reach a full cure.
Application of coating: Once all damaged areas have been repaired, it is necessary to apply a coating/sealant to the surface of the repaired areas. The coating/sealant can be applied with a brush or tank sprayer.
