Your Colorado Roofing Contractors Urge You to Stay Safe This Holiday Season!
The holidays are just around the corner. For many homeowners that means it’s time to deck the halls, and nothing says “home for the holidays” quite like a beautiful display of festive outdoor lights and decorations. However, while ‘tis the season for decorating your home, this season also can include accidental injuries and decorating mishaps causing inadvertent roof damage. As leading roofing contractors in Colorado, we’ve seen it more often than you’d think!
At Elite Roofing & Solar, part of our responsibility as roofing experts is to provide tips to keep our neighbors and customers safe. If your holiday decorating plans include hanging lights, ornaments, or other festive items from your roofline, it’s important to plan ahead and stay safe. Here are our tips on the top dos and don’ts as you deck the halls!
Don’t: Walk Around on Your Roof
Your roof is built to put up with a lot, whether it’s wind, heavy rain, hail, or anything else Mother Nature can throw at it. However, roofs aren’t generally built to be walked on, especially for those who don’t have years of practice walking on roofs without causing damage.
While it may be tempting to put Santa’s sleigh (and all of his reindeer) on your rooftop, the potential roofing damage it may cause probably isn’t worth the effort in the long run. Generally speaking, we advise keeping foot traffic on your roof to a minimum. Opt for a ladder instead!
Do: Practice Good Ladder Safety
Of course, ladders aren’t without their risks either. According to the WHO, the U.S. paces the field when it comes to ladder-related injuries, with more than 164,000 people visiting the emergency roof each year after falling from ladders.
To avoid being a statistic, practice good ladder safety. Make sure your ladder is tall enough to comfortably reach your roofline, always maintain multiple points of contact with your ladder, plant the ladder on solid, even ground, and use a spotter if you can.
Don’t: Nail Things to Your Roof
The outermost layer of your roof is meant to form a watertight seal, keeping vital structural components of your roof and home protected against moisture. Any additional holes in your roof create an opportunity for water to penetrate—so avoid nailing things to your roof at all costs!
In addition to creating an opportunity for rain to seep in, shingles make a poor anchor point for decorations. Shingles aren’t meant to bear weight—which means attaching things to them could lead to shingles being pulled from your roof, exposing the underlayment. Leave hammering nails into your roof to the professional Colorado roofing contractors.
Do: Use Roof Clips Instead
Instead of using nails, we highly recommend using roof clips specially designed for hanging lights and decorations without attaching things to your shingles. Roof clips are widely available from most major retailers, and for a very modest investment you can get enough roof clips to decorate your entire home without compromising your roof in the process.
Don’t: Run Out of Decorations
There’s no worse feeling than getting halfway through hanging string lights on your home… before realizing that you don’t have enough lights to make it all the way to the other side. If this happens, you’ll be left undoing all your hard work or making an impromptu run to the store just to buy enough lights to make it all the way across your roofline.
Do: Plan Ahead!
To avoid this issue and save yourself a major headache, plan out your decorations instead! It may seem like a chore, but it beats wasting hours of your time just to come up short on your decoration plans. Measure your roofline and add up the amount of string lights you have. Lay out other ornaments on the ground first before hanging them, to ensure they’ll be evenly spaced.
A little planning goes a long way toward making your home look great and avoiding frustration!
Elite Roofing & Solar: Your Roofing Contractors in Colorado
Here at Elite Roofing & Solar, we’re gearing up to decorate for the holidays. From lights and ornaments to snowmen and Santas, we’ll be making sure our homes look great for the holidays.
We urge our readers to be smart and safe this holiday season! No one wants to be injured over the holidays. With careful planning and safe practices, your home will look great—with no damage done to you or your roof.
And if you haven’t scheduled your annual roof inspection yet, now is the time. Make sure your roof is in good condition before winter arrives. Contact Elite Roofing & Solar today!
