Checklist for Spring Cleaning Your Roof!

Winter is hard on a roof in ways that are not obvious until later. Freeze and thaw cycles work at every small gap. Wind loosens shingles that stay in place. Debris accumulates in gutters through months when nobody is looking at them.

Spring is when that shows up, and it arrives just before the season that does the most damage: months of direct heat, followed by the heaviest storms of the year.

A roof that comes through winter apparently intact is still worth checking. Here is what to go through.

1. Clean the Gutters and Inspect Their Condition

Start here, because a clogged gutter causes damage in two directions and both are expensive.

Water overflowing the front edge saturates soil against the foundation. Water backing up over the rear edge runs onto the fascia and into the roof edge, rotting wood you cannot see from the ground.

Clear leaves, seeds, twigs, and whatever else accumulated over winter by hand, then flush the run with a hose. Flushing does two jobs: it clears what your hands missed, and it shows you whether the gutter actually drains.

With the gutter empty, check for:

• Standing water after flushing, which means the run is pitched wrong and will never drain properly
• Sagging sections or gutters pulling away from the fascia
• Rust or separation at seams and corners
• Loose or backed-out fasteners
• Downspouts discharging too close to the foundation

More detail in our gutters and downspouts services.

2. Inspect the Roof Surface

Most of this can be done from the ground with binoculars, which is safer and nearly as informative.

Loose or displaced shingles

Look for shingles that are lifted, curled at a corner, or sitting out of line with the courses around them. Sight down the roof plane at an angle rather than straight on, since misalignment shows up in the shadow line. A shingle that lost its seal over winter looks normal but is no longer attached.

Wear around penetrations

Pipe boots, vents, and flashing at chimneys and walls are where most leaks begin. Rubber pipe boots dry out and split after roughly eight to twelve years of sun exposure, and it is one of the most common leak sources we find.

Algae and moss

Dark streaks running down a slope are algae, which is common in humid climates and mostly cosmetic. Moss is a different matter, since it holds moisture against the shingle and lifts edges as it grows.

Existing growth needs to be cleaned off, gently. Pressure washing an asphalt roof strips granules and does more harm than the algae did. Zinc or copper strips installed near the ridge prevent regrowth by releasing ions that wash down the slope with each rain, but they do not remove what is already there.

Rust on metal components

Check flashing, vents, and any exposed fasteners. Light surface rust can be wire brushed, primed, and painted. Rust that has perforated the metal means the component needs replacing rather than treating.

3. Check the Roof Edge

Edges take the most wind load and get the least attention.

Look at the drip edge, fascia, and any edge metal for sections that have loosened, separated at joints, or lifted. Wind uplift begins at the perimeter, so an edge that is not secure is where the next storm starts working.

Soft or discolored fascia is a signal worth taking seriously. It usually means water has been getting behind the gutter for a while, and the fix involves carpentry rather than cleaning.

4. Check Ceilings Inside the House

Walk the upstairs rooms and look for ring-shaped stains, bubbling or blistering paint, and soft spots in drywall. In northern markets, ice damming over the winter is a common cause. Anywhere else, it usually points to a flashing or penetration failure.

Here is the important part, and it is the opposite of what most advice says: do not simply repair or paint over the stain.

A ceiling stain means water got into the structure. Covering it removes the evidence without removing the cause, and the next time it rains hard the water goes to the same place, now behind fresh paint where you will not notice it for months.

Water also rarely drops where it enters. It travels along a rafter or across the top of the ceiling drywall and falls at a low point, which can be well away from the actual entry. The stain tells you there is a leak. It does not tell you where.

Find and fix the source first. Then repair the ceiling.

While you are up there, check the attic as well: damp or compressed insulation, dark staining on the underside of the decking, and rusted nail tips all indicate moisture, and moisture without an obvious leak usually points to ventilation.

5. Work From the Top Down

Sequence matters. Clean the roof surface before the gutters, and the gutters before the ground.

The reason is simple: everything you dislodge from the roof lands in the gutters, and everything flushed from the gutters lands on whatever is below. Cleaning in the wrong order means doing the same work twice.

This applies to washing siding and windows too. Roof, then gutters, then walls, then ground.

When to Bring in a Contractor

Plenty of this is homeowner work. A few things are not:

• Anything requiring you to be on the roof. Ground-level inspection with binoculars answers most questions, and roof-level work has a real fall risk.
• Flashing repairs. These are where leaks begin and where poor repairs cause them. Roof cement troweled over flashing is a patch, not a fix.
• Re-pitching gutter runs or replacing rotted fascia.
• Any active leak. Finding the source takes experience, and guessing wrong is expensive. See roof repair or, if water is coming in now, emergency repair.
• Widespread granule loss or curling. That is a replacement conversation rather than a cleaning one.

Spring is also the right time to think ahead to storm season. See our guides to gutter health and preparing for spring storms.