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Servicing Your Own Roof – Do You Have The Basic Skills?

If you like to work on your own home and fix this and that, then perhaps you may wish to add roofing services to the list of things you feel you can do without ruining something. But you should be forewarned that it is not something which complete beginners should try their hands on.

What is required for the average person to be able to hope for good results? You should have several years of experience with using your hands, using handtools like hammers, saws, measuring equipment, etc. You need to know how to measure correctly, how to cut straight with a saw, perhaps how to use a nailgun – and generally do all of these things (and more) without hurting yourself or others.

This may sound easy, but do you know for a fact that you can drive a nail in, and not hit your fingers five times in the process? Can you use a cordless screwdriver, without messing up the bit or the screwhead? Do you have an eye for what is straight, for tolerances and distances?

Moving on from basic tool-skills, you also must have at least some practical knowledge of how a roof works and why it is built the way it is. If you don’t know why roofing materials always overlap what is below them, or where any rainwater is supposed to go when it hits the roof, then you will not be able to diagnose leaks or faulty construction correctly. You could easily be making things much, much worse in this case.

If the above makes you a little apprehensive, then maybe roofing is a few years away in the future for you. Build you skills on other things first, and try to educate yourself about them as you go. Hire a roofing service person to do what needs doing here and now, and then make sure you observe what he does, as best you can. Someday you might be able to do it yourself!

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