Year-Round Roof Maintenance Tips for Texas Homes

Your roof is your home's first line of defense against Texas weather, and it is the one part of the house most people never look at until water shows up on a ceiling. A little maintenance goes a long way. Most of it costs nothing but twenty minutes and a pair of binoculars, and it is the difference between a roof that lasts its full rated life and one that fails a decade early.

Central Texas is harder on roofs than most of the country. We get hail in the spring, weeks of triple-digit heat in the summer, sudden downpours in the fall, and the occasional ice storm in winter. Each season stresses the roof in a different way, so the checklist changes with the calendar. Here is what to look for, when, and what to leave to a professional.

Spring (March through May): the hail season checkup

Spring is when the Austin hail season does most of its damage, and it is also when winter's small problems become visible. Before the first big storm line rolls through:

• Clear gutters and downspouts of winter debris so a spring downpour drains instead of backing up under the shingles.
• Walk the property and look up. You are looking for shingles that are lifted, curled, cracked or missing, and for shingle granules collecting at the downspout outlets.
• Trim branches that hang over the roof. In a storm they scour the shingle surface, and year-round they drop leaves that hold moisture against the roof.
• Look at the metal: gutters, downspouts, vent caps and the AC unit's fins. Soft metal shows hail dents long before shingles show anything, which is why it is the first thing we photograph on an inspection.

If a storm does come through, the signs of hail damage are often invisible from the ground. That is the one time of year a professional inspection is worth scheduling even when nothing looks wrong.

Summer (June through August): heat and ventilation

Texas heat is a slow-motion roof killer. Attic temperatures can pass 140 degrees on a July afternoon, and that heat cooks asphalt shingles from underneath, driving off the oils that keep them flexible. The signs are curling edges, shingles that look blistered or bubbled, and granule loss that leaves bald, shiny patches.

The single most useful summer task is checking attic ventilation. Stand in the attic on a hot afternoon: if the air is still and stifling, the roof is aging faster than it should. Make sure soffit vents are not buried under insulation, that ridge or box vents are clear, and that bathroom fans exhaust outside rather than into the attic. Our guide to roof ventilation types walks through the options. Good airflow lowers cooling bills and adds years to the shingles.

Summer is also the time to look at sealants. Caulk around pipe boots, flashing and skylights dries out and cracks in the heat. A cracked pipe boot is one of the most common leak sources we find, and it is a small repair when caught early.

Fall (September through November): get ready for rain

Fall storms in Central Texas can drop several inches of rain in an hour. Before that starts:

• Clean the gutters again. Oak leaves and pecan husks pack tight and turn a gutter into a trough that overflows at the fascia.
• Check the flashing around chimneys, vents and where a roof meets a wall. Look for gaps, lifted edges or rust. Flashing failures cause more leaks than shingle failures do; our post on roof flashing explains what you are looking at.
• Look at the ceilings inside, especially closets and rooms under valleys, for faint tan stains. A stain that was not there last spring is a slow leak.

Winter (December through February): freeze and thaw

Texas winters are mild until they are not. An ice storm coats the roof, then a warm afternoon melts the ice at the ridge while the eaves stay frozen, and the meltwater backs up under the shingles. After any freeze:

• Check the eaves for ice dams and for icicles that hang from behind the gutter rather than from its lip, which means water got behind it.
• Look for new interior stains once everything thaws.
• Do not chip ice off the roof. It takes the granules with it. Let it melt.

Things to do all year

• Never pressure wash a shingle roof. It strips the protective granules and voids most manufacturer warranties. Moss or algae streaks come off with a low-pressure treatment made for roofs.
• Walk the property after any significant storm and look up. Five minutes, every time.
• Watch the energy bill. A sudden increase without a rate change can mean wet, compressed insulation from a leak you have not found yet.
• Keep a simple log: the date of every storm, what you saw, and the photos you took. If you ever need to show an insurer when damage happened, that log is the record.

What to leave to a professional

Walking on a roof is dangerous, and walking on a hot or wet shingle roof damages it. Anything that requires getting on the roof, opening up flashing, or diagnosing a leak that is not obvious from the attic is a job for someone with the training and the fall protection to do it safely.

Schedule a professional inspection at least once a year, ideally in late winter before hail season. A trained inspector photographs every slope, checks the soft metals, and catches the small problems while they are still small. Alta's inspections are photo-documented, so you get a record of the roof's condition whether or not anything needs doing. That record is also what makes the common roof problems in Central Texas easy to track from year to year.

A roof does not fail all at once. It fails a little at a time, usually somewhere you cannot see. The maintenance above is how you see it first.