Roof Inspection Time with Larson Home Services

Andrew and Shawn talk about the importance of having your roof thoroughly inspected now that it's technically spring and some of the problems you might encounter with older homes. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Aight O seven thirteen ten wib AMadison in the Morning. Fantastic intro music
for the one and only our goodfriend Andrew Larson. Larsen Home Services.
The website Larsenhome Services dot com.That's l A R S O N Home
Services dot com. Great website tolearn more about Andrew, the team and
of course all the great stuff theycan do for you at Larsen Home Services,

(00:23):
whether it's gutter shutter doctor, EnergySaver, and of course the Larsen
roofing experience. Again, learn moreonline Larsenholmes Services dot com. Tell number
six so eight five three five fortythree forty three. That's five three five
four three four three. I thinkit's officially spring, isn't it, Andrew?
As far as like the people atSO, what does that mean for

(00:48):
us? Big picture stuff? Andy? Andrew I called you Andy, by
the way, you told us acouple of weeks ago that they use Yeah,
I'm sorry, Andrew. I likeAndrew sounds it's a very fitting fitting
name. What does that be forfor us homeowners and folks that have their
casas? What what does spring meanto them? And what should we be
thinking about when it comes to takingcare of our house. You know what's

(01:11):
funny is are you getting a revert? I'm not. I don't think you
won't be anymore either. Cool,So, uh, you know it's funny
is I heard you chuckle when thatsong played and I was like, oh
my gosh, is my webcam on? Can he see me dancing? Because
I was totally dancing. You know, it's funny as you say, all

(01:34):
right, it's spring, and youknow what I thought, I said,
I thought today. You know,I don't want to just talk about gutters
and roofing and insulation, even thoughit's like my favorite three things in the
world. Uh, you know,it's spring. What are some important home
maintenance tips for spring? What arethe things we should check after winter?
Even though we didn't really have muchof a winter, we've had some some

(01:57):
very odd weather. I see northernWisconsin just been getting hammered with snow and
we got a bunch of much neededrain earlier this week. So that's all
good. And you know, Sean, I can't make this up. So
I actually I know what I thinkis really important, but I wanted to
get some information from another expert,and I went on HGTV dot com with

(02:19):
fifteen home maintenance tips for spring,and the first one that comes up is
inspect your shingles. Oh yes,I didn't make that up. That was
on their website, but it isvery important because after winter with ice and
snow and ice damming cold wind,it is important to check the shingles.

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And that's something that we we offerthat you know, that's part of our
roof restore or roof repair program.Because I've mentioned this many times that we
run into a lot of roofs thatjust they're not that old, you know,
ten twelve years old, and theyjust weren't done properly. The details
weren't done, so they get leakswhen they shouldn't. But the shingles aren't

(03:01):
bad. So you know, wehave a restore program and we don't just
like to say repair because you know, a repair would be like, hey,
i've got a pipe boot leaking,you know, where event comes through
the roof. We'll just throw someyou know, blackjack on there, throw
some cock on there. That's arepair that's not going to last that long.
We want to restore, so wewant to check the entire roof,

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do a free sixteen point inspection andlet you know about all it. Lets
you know about the fiberglass matting.Lets you know about granular loss. How
are your valleys looking? How isall the flash how are all the fat
flashings looking? How is your ventilation? What does your attic look like?
How's your chimney doing? We wantto check all of that stuff, all
the major leak points, all theimportant things that go wrong before the shingles

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are actually ready to be torn offand thrown in a landfill. So that
was number one. Inspect your roof. Number two was actually again I can't
make this up. Your gutters.It's really like played into what I wanted
to talk about. But check thegutters. Make sure that after the weight

(04:08):
of ice and snow in the winter, they haven't sagged, They're not misformed,
they're still sloping properly. The icedidn't fall and create any any holes
in the gutters. We see thatall the time. We'll see it where
the snow and ice slid off theroof and actually will rip the gutters off
the roof or hit the front ofit and make it. We call it
a bird beak. It bird beaksout. So now every time it rains

(04:30):
heavy, that's where the gutters overflow. So that's the importance of our gutter
shutter system and why we replace theentire thing, because if we're just to
put a cover over the top ofyour existing gutters, it doesn't mean that
your existing gutters necessarily work properly.So we want to put the whole system
up. We know it's going towork right. We also guarantee We also
guarantee it won't be damaged from theweight of ice or snow just because it

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is that thick, that big,and that strong. Next next on their
list was examine your chimney, whichI believe kind of goes along with the
roofing because it is part of theroofing system. But that's something that we
check. We checked chimneys. Chimneysare a major leak point. Typically aren't
flashtright chip typically don't have crickets behindthem. Cricket is just a it's almost

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like a little mini roof that goesbehind a chimney that channels water away from
the back of it. So youimagine all the water that can pile up,
or snow and ice that can pileup behind the back of a chimney.
It's kind of like putting a wallup. That's the wall of that
chimney. We want a channel wateraway from it. So that's all something
that we would do with our freesixteen point inspection. The next maintenance issue

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on the list was check the attic. Again, I am not making this
up. Anybody can google this,but it was check the roof, check
the gutters, check the chimney,check the attic. These are things that
we all handle. Why do youthink, you know, why would you
want to check the attic. Well, when our house is all closed up
in the winter and we're cooking andwe're cleaning, and we're bathing and we're

(06:08):
heating our home, that hot airrises. Whereas in the summer and in
the spring we have our windows opena lot more so we have a lot
more airflow. But in the wintereverything's closed up and all that warm,
hot, moist air goes up intothe attic. So we want to check
our attic to make sure that we'vegot proper ventilation, to make sure that
we're not creating mold issues, becausethat's something that we see very very regularly

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when a roof got done or anattic got redone and they didn't make sure
there was proper ventilation. Now,all that warm moist air gets trapped up
there and it's just the perfect conditionsto start seeing mold, which is not
good for anything. Mold eats wood, Mold makes people sick. It's bad.
So making sure those gutters are workingproperly, making sure we're checking our

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roof. We didn't lose shingles inthe winter, we didn't create leaks.
Just making sure that they're going tomake it through another season, and then
checking the attic, making sure we'vegot got proper ventilation and we didn't create
a mold issue during the winter months. So these are some of the more
important things to get done right away, and these are all things that we
can take care of for anyone listening. One of the things that's really impressive

(07:20):
about working with your guys at ourStop Services. Of course, you guys
redid our roof a number of yearsago. It still looks If anyone drives
by, you will know it lookslike it just was done. It looks
it still looks absolutely amazing. Oneof the things that I love that you
guys do is we talk about someof these areas for the spring inspection,

(07:41):
whether the roof of the gutters,chimney. The attic is your gun,
and God bless them for doing it. Like it wasn't like like when they
went up in the attic. Itwasn't just like I'm gonna poke my head
up there and just scan the flashlightand kind of do an assessment, like
went up in our attic and it'slike, our roof is in our attic

(08:03):
space isn't particularly tall. Like crawlingthrough there, like looking in like the
little court, like the little nooksand crannies between the woodwork and the and
looking at the inslation, I thought, what is good? There is?
There is not a corner cut there, Andrew there is? It is literally,
yeah, people all the time,you know, well, why do

(08:26):
you need to look at my attic? Look, we don't need to every
time, but we want to.Some attic accesses are not the greatest.
Some people don't have attic access.But what we like to tell people is
that we can tell a lot abouthow their roof is working by looking up
in their attic. We can seeleaks that they haven't seen yet. We

(08:46):
can see rotten wood that people haven'tseen yet. I mean, one of
the most important parts of your roofis your decking. What is the roof
decking like? Is it in goodshape? Is it planks? And we
run into a lot of older homesthat are you know that ninety hundred years
old. Well, they didn't haveplywood back then. They didn't have osb
to put on roofs. They usedwood planks like one by sixes or two

(09:09):
by sixes whatever they wanted to putup there. Because when those homes were
built, they used cedar shakes,so they didn't need a full surface,
and they had gaps in them.Well, here's here's the deal. A
lot of people get new roofs puton and then they tear that roof off
and go, oh darn it,you have planks. This roof's gonna cost

(09:33):
you an extra four thousand dollars.Now, I mean, what a kick
in the shorts. Right. Wewant to be upfront with all of that
stuff. So if we can seeit from the underneath, we can say,
okay, there's planks up there,and they're spaced out more than an
eighth of an inch. We haveto redeck this, and the reason being
because asphalt shingles, there's so manynails that go in there that with that

(09:54):
spacing there's just a certain percentage ofnails that they're not going to hit anything.
Now we can't give a wind rating, you're gonna have easier blowoffs.
When the cedar shakes were put on, it was totally fine. They spaced
them how they needed them. Sowe want to look up in the attic
make sure the underdecking is good.Sometimes we can get up there and we
can see problems because we can seedaylight. We can see daylight where we

(10:18):
shouldn't be able to see daylight whereflashing should be. So it's very important
to look up in the attic.And there's a lot of roofers I'm sure
that don't. We just don't wantto have any surprises. Also, a
roofing system works well when the insulationand air ceiling is done properly. So
if we've got proper insulation, airceiling, and ventilation, that's all part

(10:39):
of the roofing system in my book, it is in our company's book.
We want to make sure that's alldone properly. So if we're going to
get up there and inspect the roof, we want to check out the attic
as well, and we'll give recommendations. A lot of times we get up
there and say, hey, youknow what, you've got air ceiling,
you've got great insulation and great ventilation, perfect, and the under decking looks

(11:00):
good. All we're going to needto do is replace this roof. There
should be no surprises. But ifwe see wood that looks rotten or moldy,
and we see improper ventilation with noair ceiling, we're going to say,
hey, all right, we've gotsome rotten wood. A lot of
times that rotten wood is not becausethe roof is leaking. A lot of
times it's because of the conditions upin the attic with no air ceiling,

(11:22):
with improper ventilation and insulation. Sowe'll say, hey, this roof needs
to be replaced, but we're alsogoing to have to replace a bunch of
decking. And here's why, becausewe have we need to fix the ventilation
and we need to fix the airceiling. Otherwise, this moisture is just
going to keep coming up there,condensing on the wood, creating mold and
creating rot. So we want tofix it right the first time and create

(11:46):
something that lasts a lifetime for thehomeowners we work with. And when you
look at the warranty, you lookat the type of workmanship, you look
at everything and get with large StormeServices, you definitely want to make sure
you're having your your an. Howis the time here to get that roof
inspect that have you gutters checked outas well? And of course home performance.
Larsen Home Services they can do allof those things for you. All
I got to do this morning,pick up the phone, give Andrew and

(12:07):
the team a call their telephone numbersix so eight five three five forty three
forty three. That's five three fiveforty three forty three. Trust me when
I tell you this, you willbe absolutely impressed by what they do with
Larsen Home Services. Me mentioned wetalk about, you know, getting up
in the attic and stuff. Oneof the things I really like too is
getting like a very detailed you know, before we went to contract, before

(12:28):
we started anything, your guys cameand gave me a very detail. This
is what this is what we saw, this is what's going to need to
be replaced, this is what's partof the part of the project. And
as you were talking there and talkingabout some of the you know, some
of the decking and the boards thatare up there is a part of me
wonders, and I wonder if there'sprobab. There's probably if I go back,
and there's probably a note on it. I think part of why they

(12:50):
were going so far into the atticwas I think there was a spot and
if it maybe maybe it did hangin. It's so long ago, Andrew.
Again, I believe that, Sean, I believe that we'd have to
replace some Ronnie. Yeah, andI think that was what they Yeah,
what they were doing. So thatwas again this is we talk about your
home, you talk about your investment, and you talk about something that's going
to last long time. Again,I like to point out it's long enough

(13:13):
that I don't remember all the details. But again, if you drive by
the house, you can you wouldthink that it was just put on yesterday.
It's an amazing job. That's agreat thing about working with Andrew and
the team today today. Pick upphone, give him a call six eight
five three five forty three forty three. That's five three five four three four
three for Larsten Home Services. Andrew, it's always great chatting with you,
my friend. You enjoy this fantasticday you as well. We'll talk next

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week. News comes your way nexthere. I'm not new, we have
Kevin Ham comes your way. Nexthere On thirteen ten Wiva