Unless you live in a dwarf house or you are a giant, you are likely going to need a ladder.

Adhere to the many (and many crucial) rules of ladder safety. Avoid wearing inappropriate footwear (e.g. flip flops, sandals, easy slipping shoes, et cetera) follow all safety instructions on the ladder itself. Avoid putting too much weight on ladder, standing too high (creates an imbalance), placing the ladder on a dirty surface, or getting up on a ladder in the middle of a rainstorm – particularly a thunder and lightning storm.

Hidden Risks, Surprising Resources  

Your gutters might just be full of fluffy leaves or pine needles or other soft materials. But you never know. The edges of gutters can be sharp, and they could cut your hands. Nails and other sharp debris blown onto the roof can accumulate in gutters and pose other hazards. You could even discover – horror of horrors – a dead bird or animal in the gutters. So wear gloves and use tools, like garden shovels, to scoop out the debris.

To avoid the whole “risking your neck on a ladder and combing through gunky mulch with your bare hands” thing – what we just talked about – you can utilize homemade ad-hoc tools or even purchase special gutter cleaning solutions at your local hardware store.

One intrepid blogger described a contraption that he built that turns a leaf blower into a gutter cleaner by attaching vacuum tubing to the blower to blast air through the gutter and knock out the leaves and debris. This is a nice fix to reduce ladder work or possibly eliminate it completely.

Watch That Back!

Lastly, pay attention to your own physical needs. Avoid straining your back (particularly the lower back); maintaining an awkward posture for an extended amount of time; working in extreme weather conditions (very hot, rainy, cold, etcetera); and doing extensive ladder work without a spotter nearby to help you if you get into trouble.

To avoid the hassle of cleaning your own gutters, connect with the Bay Area roofing professionals at Century Roof and Solar. For over 15 years, our team has won a reputation as the most trusted name in roofing, and we are proud to be the Bay Area’s leader in lightweight roof systems and gutters.

Call our team at 888-233-748 to get a free roofing quote – we serve the entire East Bay Area –

Whether you expect monsoon-like thunderstorms to drench your home, condominium, or business, or you expect relatively light rainfall but worry because you live in an older home, you want a systematic way to check your roof for leaks before all the action begins.

The biggest challenge is finding the spot or spots that are leaking.

This is because the information you get from the leak itself (where the water is dripping) may tell you very little about where the actual problem spot is. For instance, water might penetrate through your roof at one location, run down for several feet or longer, and “leak” through a second location. Where you spot the damage – where the insulation is wet, shingles are rotting, etc. – is the distall (far) problem. You want to find the proximal problem (the root cause).

Grab a flashlight and a helper, and let’s get going.

You might want to do this leak hunting during a rainy day, since that’s when the leaks will be most active. If not, you can actually jerry-rig “fake rain” by spraying a hose on your roof. Head up into your attic (or the room right below the roof) and scour the sealing and other areas for water, damp spots, spots that “don’t look right,” or spots where the paint is blistering. Places where moisture can accumulate include gutters, shingles, gaskets, flashing, rubber seals around vents and pipes, and ridge caps.

Once you identify all the leaks (or possible leaks), wait until the rain stops (or turn off the water). Once things have dried off, go up on the roof while a helper stays in the room below. Turn on the water and use trial and error (communicating with your helper via a cell phone or a walky-talky) to identify the proximal location based on when the distill areas activate, when you spray water on the roof. Don’t flood potentially problematic areas, or you will have a harder time locating the proximal problem area.

If this all sounds too complicated, convoluted, or time consuming, you might be right. It might be a lot easier to connect with the Bay Area’s leader in lightweight roof systems, Century Roof and Solar.

For over a decade and a half, our Bay Area roofing contractors have helped East Bay residents and business owners solve their roofing problems permanently and affordably. Learn more about the solutions we can provide for you at www.centuryrooftile.com, or schedule a consultation with our Diamond-certified company by calling us at 888-233-7548.

Whether you’re about to embark on a major remodeling project that could take many months and require the services of multiple contractors; or you simply want to repair a roof that got damaged during a recent windstorm, you likely harbor worries about the process. Below, we discuss three of the biggest homeowner concerns:

1. Identifying the right price for the job.

You’d like to keep costs low for obvious reasons. On the other hand, you realize that if you accept the lowest bid simply because it’s the cheapest, you could set yourself up for disaster.  Lousy workmanship, missed deadlines, and chaos at the construction site can make you miserable and ultimately inflate project costs. In the worst case scenario, you may need to pay a second contractor to redo the first contractor’s botched job.

In an ideal world, you want a roofing company that’s going to be completely honest with you about pricing and that’s going to give you an excellent deal for your money – that is, the contractors will meet your needs and provide complete transparency of process.

2. A desire for the project to go smoothly, satisfyingly, cleanly, and without drama.

Homeowners who remodel fear (and rightly so) projects running over budget, running overtime frame, or simply running out of control. We all have heard horror stories from neighbors and friends who have hired the wrong contractors. The results are sadly predictable: construction debris and litter strewn over the lawn; property (such as garden plants) disrespected and stompedout of existence; rude, discourteous workers; “unexpected” delays and so on.

In an ideal world, you want the experience to be completely drama-free. Your contractor should demonstrate respect, courteousness, cleanliness, and the ability to manage internal projects so that they minimize disruption to your life and maximize efficiency and quality.

3. A desire for long-term value from the re-roofing.

What exactly constitutes “value”?  The answer boils down to quality over time. Your finished product – the roof that’s restored, repaired, or reinstalled – should add to your property’s value and your own well being simultaneously. Ideally, the roof should be made of sturdy, durable, high-quality components from manufacturers who employ the best standards, and should minimize the likelihood that you will have to “re-repair” the work.

We at Century Roof and Solar employ only the best quality controlled products (such as roof and gutter products) from trusted manufacturers.  We have developed a reputation for delivering clean, quality, reliable, on-time results, and we’ve won awards for our customer satisfaction.  We are a Diamond Certified company, a proud member of the Better Business Bureau, and a member of the Committee for Firesafe Dwellings (a non-profit corporation). We have 15 years of experience, and we can handle jobs of immense complexity as well as jobs that have a tight time deadline.  Learn about how we can help you at www.centuryrooftile.com, or call us for a quote at 510-780-9489.