Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
The green light list is short and real: gutter cleaning, gutter screen on a single story, slip covers over pipes, swamp cooler maintenance. A tube of roofing sealant on a pipe flashing that never got sealed. That is about where I would stop it. The hard no list is anything steep, anything that is not shingles, anything near an edge on a two or three story house. Anything that changes how water gets off your roof.
Stick to jobs that do not touch the waterproofing and do not require standing anywhere awkward.
The green light jobs have low consequences when done imperfectly; the rest do not.
Hand off anything steep, anything not shingles, or anything near an edge above the first story.
Clean your Utah gutters, screen a one-story, cap a pipe. Past that, the roof stops being a home project and starts being a fall.
Mattie Tueller, Master Roofing
These are jobs a reasonably handy person, comfortable on a ladder, can do without me wincing. They share two traits: none of them changes the waterproofing in a way that can fail badly. None requires you to be somewhere precarious.
That is about where I would stop it. The list is short on purpose. Everything on it is really worth doing rather than a token gesture.
This sits on the line. So it gets its own section rather than a spot on either list.
Physically, replacing a single shingle after a wind event is not complicated. In practice, most homeowner attempts we see afterward were done incorrectly. The errors are consistent: the wrong nailing placement, the new shingle not properly interleaved with the courses above it, or sealant substituted for correct fastening. All three look finished. All three leak later, and by then nobody connects the leak to the repair.
There is also a materials problem. A shingle from the store rarely matches an aged roof. Once installed it cannot be reused. So a bad attempt is not free.
So the honest position: if it is a single shingle, on a walkable pitch, on a single story, well away from the edge. You have watched carefully how the courses interlock, go ahead. If any one of those is not true, this is the job where the small savings most reliably turns into a leak you pay to find later.
These are not judgment calls. They are the jobs where the downside is either a fall or a leak you will not find until it has done real damage.
Two different failure modes sit behind those items. It is worth knowing which one you would be risking.
If you are still weighing whether to go up at all, the decision framework is in whether you can repair your roof yourself. And if you already tried a fix and the leak came back, that has a specific and very common explanation worth reading.
I get asked for this list often. I like giving it. That's because a roofer who tells you everything up there is too dangerous for you is not being careful. He is being self-serving, and you can usually tell.
So here is where I actually stop it. Gutters, screen on a one-story, swamp cooler maintenance, a tube of sealant on a pipe flashing that never got sealed. Real jobs, worth doing. Not one of them touches the waterproofing in a way that can go badly wrong. That is about where I would stop it.
What sits on the other side of that line is not a skill problem, it is a consequence problem. Roofing ranks among the most hazardous occupational classifications there is. Not because the work is complicated. It is because the floor is sloped and the ground is far away. Even the fall protection is its own trade: the only thing worse than not being on an anchor is being on an anchor that was not installed correctly.
So Master Roofing prices small repairs by difficulty rather than at a flat rate, specifically so the honest answer never has to be padded. Use this line: if the job changes how water gets off your roof, or puts you anywhere you would not comfortably stand empty-handed, that is the one to hand off.
Building codes, permit rules, and licensing requirements change over time, and they differ by city and county across Utah. Verify current requirements with your local building department before relying on anything here, and work with a licensed contractor who knows the rules in your jurisdiction.
This article is general information about Utah roofs, not an assessment of yours. Every roof is different, and no article can tell you what is actually happening on your specific house. Have a licensed roofing contractor look at it in person before you act on anything here.
Not with a pressure washer. The force strips granules. That are the layer protecting the asphalt from UV, so you trade a cosmetic problem for real service life. Moss and algae treatments exist and some are appropriate. But this is worth asking about rather than improvising. That's because several common household solutions damage either the shingles or the landscaping below.
The job itself is the same; the risk is not. Working from a ladder at second-story height, leaning to reach along a gutter run, is where a large share of homeowner falls happen. On a single story this is a reasonable afternoon. Above that, the labor savings are small relative to what you are risking.
If it is dry shingles on a walkable pitch and you stay well away from the edges, a careful look is defensible. Remember that looking becomes working the moment you crouch or reach for something. That is when footing goes wrong. Where possible, look from the attic or from a ladder at the edge instead.
Those products are not exterior-rated and are not manufactured to sit in Utah sun, snow. Freeze-thaw year round, so nobody can tell you how long they will hold. They also hide the actual entry point, which makes the eventual real repair harder to find. If weather is coming and you need a stopgap, a professional emergency tarp is the right temporary measure.
On the green light list, mostly you are saving a trip charge. The jobs are pleasant enough that plenty of people prefer doing them. On anything past that line, the savings shrink quickly once you count tools, materials bought twice. The time cost of unfamiliarity. A job that takes a professional an hour generally takes a capable homeowner about three.
We're here to see what's going on with your roof. A real assessment starts with your history and your attic, not a number from the driveway. You'll get a straight answer about what's up there, what it needs, and what it costs. Sometimes the honest answer is: your roof looks great.