In this episode, Patrick discusses Winters in Portland and how to make sure your roof is ready to face what Mother Nature has up her sleeves. Most experts agree this is going to be a rough one!
Podcast Transcription: RoofLifeB037-229
Shayla: Thank you for joining us today for the Roof Life of Oregon podcast. I’m talking with Patrick Morin today. Patrick, let’s talk about Portland weather, what it has been like this year, what is to come, and how that will affect Portland roofs.
Patrick: Great topic. For the calendar year 2018, even the winter of 2017-18, really was mild, compared to 2016-17 where we broke 7 state records. So you just never know what Mother Nature is going to send out for us, but we have had a super dry, super mild, glorious spring and summer and here we are in the fall, and we know that Oregon has to get its 40 inches of rain somehow, and Mother Nature has a plan, we just don’t know what it is. And so when you’re dealing with roofs and their good care, the greatest thing that we can do is make sure you don’t do what my family did on the Deschutes river. We’ve been running that river for 32 years as a family. We stay there a whole week and we just run that river in Mopin and have a great time. Two years ago, we were going down the river and we had our nuts out, we were talking, and having a great time. And I was just really enjoying the weather, the water, the scenery, and I wasn’t paying attention as the oarsman, and we hit a big rock and we tipped over. And I lost three of my grandkids and my daughter into the water, which I jumped in to go help. And the funny thing was, by association, my son, who was manning the other boat, again, we’ve run this river our whole lives, never tipped over, he hit the same rock and he tipped over, and his boat got stuck on the rock.
Shayla: Oh no.
Patrick: So I don’t want that to happen to you with your roof, where it’s great weather, no problems, kind of very aired summer, spring. But water and wind are coming so I thought a little bit of review of what we might prepare for, just to have in your mind what the roof needs. So when the leaves start falling, we want to make sure to have a licensed contractor blow off the drain areas, blow off the roof and get the gutters cleaned out. We want to make sure that we check all of the protrusions that come through the roof. So you look up there, you’ll see the flat areas of the roof, then you’ll see a pipe and a can vent, a square can vent, you’ll see skylights, you’ll see chimneys. These are all interruptions to the flow of water. You want to have those checked just to make sure something hasn’t opened up, the flashing, the sealants haven’t opened up, because when the water comes, the goal of Roof Life is to help you keep the water on the outside of your home, and going off into the gutters and away from your home.
It would be not good to have it come in. Most people’s deductible on their homeowner’s insurance is $1,000, which blows through a leak issue quickly. So most of it is you pay for it yourself. So it’s worth not having an incident by calling up and getting a well-care check-up on your roof. And a well-care checkup remember is, I’m just having my roof checked to make sure that everything’s ready for what’s coming. You don’t have to think there is a problem. We’ll do a video inspection of your home, of your home’s roof. You’ll see anything that’s of concern and then you can choose to address it from there, if you want to, or let her ride if you want to do that.
Shayla: It kind of sounds like you go annually to get a preventative at the doctor, even if nothing’s wrong, you need a professional –
Patrick: Yeah, well, and being a new 57-year-old, once you’re over fifty, they want to see you every five years, and then once you’re over sixty, they want to see you every three, and I remember when I was 23, he didn’t care when I came in. He goes, well, you know, if you’re feeling bad, come in, but as soon as I hit fifty, it was like, you better get in here every five. So same thing with your roof. When you have a new roof, remember that ninety percent of the new roofs in these subdivisions are put on by companies paid to go fast. They’re paid by the size of the roof, not how good they do it. It’s always good to have those checked.
If you’re in a real estate transaction, make sure and have that roof looked at by a licensed roofing contractor, Roof Life of Oregon is one, where we go and tell you about the roof that you’re about to purchase on your home. If you’re selling the home, we can come and tell you what needs to be done to meet the certification criteria for your buyer. If you’re in an older home and you don’t know even know how old the roof is, that’s a good reason to call and get a check-up. We’ll kind of tell you where the roof’s at in its lifespan, how much service life is left in it, and things that you can plan on, and budget as a homeowner.
Lots of times, when you don’t know where your roof is at in its life cycle, knowing where it's at gives you a lot of confidence. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be weathertight. When you go to the beaches here and the little bays and you see these rusty, big fishing boats. The thing is, they don’t look perfect, they’re not like pristine like that yacht sitting over there, but these boats that look just rusted out, they’re well used, they go out way out there in the ocean and bring back loads of fish, and they do it every day and they are very safe and sound, but you know that those captains do a check-up on all the key components that are going to keep the ocean out of their boat because when you get out there, you don’t want the ocean in your boat, and that’s the same thing in Portland. We get lulled into, like my family and I did, going down the river, doing trail mix, “oh, what a great day!” And all of a sudden you get knocked over. And preventative is so easy because we find it before it ever happens, we give the report, and you look at the report in your email. Let’s be preventative and take care of it. Gives you confidence in keeping the water out of your home.
Shayla: Alright, so regardless of when you’re listening to this podcast, whether it’s before or after the rain has started in Portland, it’s always a great time to get more information on what’s going on your roof. So you can always reach out to Patrick and the team at Roof Life of Oregon.