Roof Maintenance near you

Start with a list of everything that goes through the roof. Solar mounts and cable entries, air conditioning penetrations and pipework, the flue or vent for a hot water service, exhaust fans, whirlybirds, skylights, antennas, and the gas or wood heater flue if there is one. Each of those is a flashing, and the Housing Provisions require roof flashings and cappings to be purpose made, machine-folded sheet metal sections, with defined arrangements for penetrations including collar flashings, roof trimmers and soaker supports.

Then the covering around them. On sheet roofs, minimum end laps differ with pitch, and fixings must be of a metal compatible with the roof. Compatibility is the quiet killer at a penetration: the Code prohibits lead materials upstream of aluminium and zinc coated materials and copper materials upstream of galvanised coatings, and a bracket, clamp or pipe added by another trade is exactly how an incompatible metal ends up upstream of your roof.

Finish with the water path. Gutters, valleys, downpipes and the outlets they discharge to, checked as a system rather than as a cleaning task. A maintenance visit that ends with a bag of leaves and no written observations has cleaned the gutters; it has not maintained the roof.

Anchor the year to whatever will test the roof hardest at your address, and work backwards from it. In the tropical north that is the wet season and the cyclone season that runs with it, so the work has to be finished while crews can still stay on a roof. In the temperate south it is the winter fronts and the spring hail. On bushfire prone land, the deadline is the start of the local fire season and it is usually earlier than either.

Fire preparation is the one that is genuinely time-critical, and it is specific. The CFA's guidance for existing homes is to keep gutters clear of any leaves or twigs during the warmer months, especially after windy days, and to seal gaps at the roof using compressed mineral wool insulation, to cover skylights with non-combustible fire screens, and to cover gaps in evaporative coolers with metal mesh. Every one of those is a roof maintenance task rather than a garden task.

In the cooler climate zones there is a quieter seasonal item. Part 10.8.3 of the Housing Provisions requires a ventilated roof space in climate zones 6, 7 and 8, with openings at the eaves and at high level in proportions that change with the roof pitch. If someone has blocked the eaves openings with insulation, packing or a bird mesh that has silted up, the roof space stops ventilating and the problem shows up as condensation in winter rather than as a leak.

The fall risk is the first reason and it is not theoretical. SafeWork NSW records falls from heights as the number one cause of death on NSW construction sites, notes that the most serious and fatal falls are from roofs, ladders and scaffolds and from a height of under four metres, and identifies physical guardrails as the best control measure for preventing falls over a roof edge. A domestic ladder against a gutter is none of that.

The second reason is what is already up there. A roof with a solar array on it has live direct current cabling running across it in daylight, whatever the switch at the inverter is doing, and a roof space threaded with cabling is an electrical environment. The trades who work on those roofs are accredited and licensed for exactly that reason: rooftop solar installers must be accredited by Solar Accreditation Australia and hold an unrestricted electrical licence in the state or territory of installation.

The third is the material. On a house built or renovated before the 1990s, the roof sheeting, eaves lining, cover strips, flashings, guttering and downpipes may be asbestos cement, commonly used in building materials between the 1940s and the late 1980s. High-pressure water spray, jets, power tools and compressed air must never be used on it, which rules out the pressure washer that most homeowner maintenance begins with.

The licensing map follows the trade, not the visit. In New South Wales, roof plumbing covers fixing, installing, renovating, altering, repairing and maintaining guttering, downpipes, roof flashing and roof coverings on any building or structure, and a contractor licence is required for residential work above the Home Building Act threshold. So the person who reforms a flashing at your solar mount is doing licensed work even if it takes twenty minutes.

Queensland puts one phrase into its roof and wall cladding licence class that deserves quoting on a maintenance page: refurbishing and maintaining roofs, other than painting them. Maintenance is named scope, not the gap between jobs. A QBCC licence is required for building work above the state threshold and for plumbing and drainage at any value, so a visit that also touches the stormwater connection has crossed a second line.

Electrical work on the roof is a separate world again, and not one to blur. If a maintenance visit is going to involve moving, lifting or reinstating a solar array, ask who is doing the electrical part, under which accreditation and which state electrical licence, before anything is unbolted.

Manufacturer warranties on roofing materials commonly carry maintenance conditions, and an undocumented roof is a roof with no defence when a claim is made years later. Keep the original product and coating specification, the installation date, and every maintenance report and photograph in one place.

Where a leak starts at another trade's penetration, the useful document is the one that shows when the penetration was made and what it looked like immediately afterwards. That is why the first maintenance visit after any installation is worth booking deliberately rather than waiting for the next annual cycle.

The consumer guarantees the ACCC enforces apply to the maintenance service itself: acceptable care and skill, fitness for any purpose you made known, and supply within a reasonable time where none was agreed. If the purpose is to keep a roof warranty valid or to protect a rainwater catchment, say so in writing when you book.