Increasing temperatures can destroy your roof’s composition. Thus, Littleton, CO homeowners are at an advantage because of the area’s great temperature balance.
However, all roofs will suffer from wear and tear that weakens them against the Sun’s rays. Here are three signs that your roof has suffered from sun damages.
Blistering
Cracks that fill with water will eventually have blisters. These blisters won’t pop their water. However, they signify that your roof is suffering from excessive heat and may require maintenance or drastic repairs.
Cracking
Dried tiles and single-ply membranes will crack because of dehydration. Therefore, you’ll want to keep washing your roof to keep it moisturized.
Always call a professional roofer if you see cracks and moisture on your roof.
Fading
Colors are the number-one victims of excessive heat. Thus, faded roof colors will reduce your property’s value due to decreased curb appeal.
Bluebird Roofing has a great list of items that can destroy your roof. Learn more about them here.
UV Rays
White light might heat up shingles (more on that in a moment), but that’s not the part that’s directly affecting the molecules of the shingles. It’s the UV rays that are actually breaking apart the molecules as they sit out in the sun. After all, UV light is the kind that can penetrate deep and destroy cells, whether it’s a human’s skin or a plastic chair that’s left out on the deck all winter. Once you break apart a shingle’s cells, they become brittle and easier to crack if something hits it.
Heat
Many roofs are black or some other dark color, whether it’s dark gray, dark green, or dark red. Think about it…when’s the last time you saw white or baby blue shingles? In most areas of the country this is to absorb the sun’s rays in order to heat the home and melt snow. But absorbing all that heat during the day means that the shingles are expanding. Once the sun goes down or the weather suddenly turns cold, the shingles contract. If that happened occasionally, it wouldn’t be much of a problem. But to some degree this happens every day, which means that asphalt shingles are stretching all the time. Combine that with the breakdown of the molecules that we mentioned above and eventually the shingles will start to fall apart.
Of course, heat and UV rays are also affecting the adhesive in an asphalt shingle. The adhesive is keeping the granules attached to the shingle sheet. That’s when it detaches and simply washes away during a rain. And speaking of rain…
Rain
At first it might be difficult to believe that rain could affect something as hard as a shingle. But there are examples all around of what happens when trillions of raindrops get together to do damage: floods, hurricanes, and thunderstorms that can absolutely destroy home. So it should come as no surprise that all of those raindrops hitting your roof incessantly during a storm can eventually wear down the shingles. After all, if an ocean can wear boulders into a sandy beach, the raindrops can ruin your roof. (Continued)
You can always count on us at Roper Roofing & Solar for all your roofing and solar installation needs. Contact us today to learn more about our products and services.