Roofing Repairs Your Lake Vacation Home May Need After It's Been Vacant For Months

If you have a vacation home on the lake where you spend weekends and summer vacations, you may not notice things like roof damage since you're not living in the home full time. It's good to inspect the roof regularly on a vacation home that's often vacant. Here is some damage that can happen and the type of roofing repair you may need.

Wind Damage

Roofs are made to withstand strong winds in storms, but when you live on a lake, there may not be any windbreaks to slow down the wind. Continual strong wind can be hard on a roof, and these winds continue through all seasons of the year.

Check your roof at the start of the season when you open your house. Look for lifted or missing shingles that need to be adhered or replaced. If you spot shingle damage, you may want the roofer to look for other signs of roof or water damage to make sure the roof is in good shape and won't continue to rot once the shingles are repaired.

Lake-Effect Storm Damage

Things that land on your roof, like snow, or that impact your roof, like hail, can do a lot of damage. Hail damage can be tricky to spot unless you're a roofer, so if you know there's been a bad hail storm in your area, it's a good idea to have your roof checked for damage to the shingles so they can be repaired or replaced before your roof starts leaking.

Snow and ice can sometimes cause problems with a roof, especially if an ice dam forms. This is one reason it's good to check your roof every spring so you can find damage caused by heavy lake-effect snow and ice accumulation on the roof. Shingles may need to be replaced, and it's possible the deck could be damaged due to snow and ice getting under shingles, and when that happens, the rotted area of decking has to be replaced too.

Animal Damage

A lake setting usually has all kinds of wildlife, and they may be interested in your house when your home is vacant for months over the winter. If you have trees near your house that make it easy for animals to get on your roof, they may decide to gnaw holes in the roof to get in your attic. You may return to your house to find roof and attic damage.

If the holes allowed rain to get under shingles, the roofer might need to repair water damage and holes to your roof by replacing part of the deck and sheathing and then installing new shingles. Gnawed holes in fascia boards can be patched sometimes, but if the board is old and rotted, replacing it is better so the rodents won't be tempted to gnaw through it again.