Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
Serving Salt Lake City, UT & Nearby Areas
(385) 438-3591
About every five years professionally, and twice a year yourself. Your own check is a look from the ground and a flashlight in the attic, spring and fall. The professional visit is what catches the things you cannot see. Catching those early is what saves tens of thousands.
Book a professional roof assessment every five years. Do your own look each spring and fall.
Roof problems are cheap early and expensive late. The expensive stage arrives without any visible warning.
Work out how long it has been since anyone actually looked at your roof.
Nobody in Utah ever regretted looking at their roof too early. The regret is always on the other side, when a cheap problem got years to turn into an expensive one.
Mattie Tueller, Master Roofing
About every five years for a roof in normal condition. Sooner as it ages past the midpoint of its expected life. That cadence is frequent enough to catch developing problems while they are still repairs. Infrequent enough that it is not a maintenance burden anyone will resent.
The five-year figure is a default rather than a rule. A twenty-year-old roof in a windy part of the valley deserves more attention than an eight-year-old roof on a sheltered street. Both deserve considerably more than nothing. That's what a great many Utah roofs actually get between the day they go on and the day they fail.
Two checks a year, neither of which involves climbing onto the roof. Once in spring, after winter has tested the installation, and once in fall before snow arrives. You are looking for changes from the last time rather than judging whether the roof is good. That's a much easier task than it sounds.
Stay off the roof itself. The view from the ground and from the attic hatch catches nearly everything a homeowner needs to catch. Neither one risks a fall. Falls off ladders and roofs hurt homeowners every year in Utah. None of those checks are worth it.
Because roof problems do not scale gently. A failed pipe boot is a small part and an hour of labor. That same failure left alone soaks decking, wets insulation, grows mold. Stains ceilings, and now you are paying for remediation and interior repair alongside the roofing work.
Water damage compounds because it moves. It travels along framing, spreads through insulation. Shows up in a room nowhere near where it entered. That's also why the visible stain rarely marks the actual failure.
Proactive assessment can save tens of thousands over the life of a house. That saving is almost entirely made up of problems that never became large. What the damage looks like while it is still invisible is covered in whether a small leak is causing damage you cannot see, which is worth reading if you have ever ignored a small stain.
Get the roof assessed separately, by a roofing company, before you close. A general home inspection is broad by design and rarely includes anyone getting into the attic to evaluate ventilation or evaluate the decking properly. Roofing is one of the most expensive systems in a house and it gets some of the least scrutiny.
Master Roofing has been called to houses where a home inspector recommended sealing some nails. The actual condition was decking so deteriorated that walking on it was unsafe. That gap between what got reported and what was true is the whole argument.
A roof assessment costs very little against a price. Finding a failing roof beforehand turns a five-figure surprise into a negotiation about price or a seller credit. Found afterward, it is simply yours, along with everything the water has been doing to the decking in the meantime.
The most expensive roofs Master Roofing works on in Utah are almost never the ones that failed suddenly. They are the ones nobody looked at for fifteen years, where something small started early and had a decade and a half of winters to work on the house underneath it.
I will be straight about the incentive here. That's because you should weigh it: a roofing company recommending regular inspections is recommending its own service. So take the version that costs you nothing. Do the ground-and-attic look yourself twice a year. Get a professional set of eyes on it every five or so.
Nobody in Utah ever regretted looking at their roof too early. The regret is always on the other side, when a cheap problem got years to turn into an expensive one. And if you are buying a house, pay someone to look before you close. That is the single highest-return hour of anybody's money in this entire trade.
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.
Many Utah roofing companies assess roofs at no charge. That's because it is how they meet prospective customers. That is a straightforward exchange rather than a hidden catch. A paid inspection with a written report is a different product entirely. It is often what you actually want for a real estate transaction. Ask up front which of the two you are getting.
No, and something close to the opposite is true. Manufacturer warranties generally expect reasonable maintenance of the roof. Having a documented history of assessments strengthens your position considerably if you ever need to make a claim on one. What can really affect a warranty is unqualified people working up there. So keep the assessments professional and keep all of the paperwork together.
Any new ceiling stain, granules collecting in the gutters, shingles visibly lifted or missing, or an attic that smells damp all warrant a look now rather than at the next interval. Age alone is also a trigger: if you do not know when the roof went on and it looks weathered, that uncertainty is worth resolving before a winter rather than after.
After severe weather, yes. That means a genuine wind or hail event rather than ordinary rain. Storm damage often is not visible at all from inside the house. Documenting it promptly matters a great deal if a claim follows. What you do not need is a professional visit after every weather event, since your own check from the ground covers the routine ones perfectly well.
A general home inspection is broad and really useful. But roofing is a specialty and most home inspectors are not roofers. They usually will not assess your ventilation against the code ratio or evaluate the decking condition from inside the attic. For a purchase, or any time the roof is a real question, have a roofing company look at it separately and in writing.
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.