Upkeep Tips From Your Knoxville Contractor For Wooden Decking

The wooden deck is a beautiful addition to any home. But your deck is only as strong and long-lived as the quality of the upkeep that it receives. Starting with quality materials is a great base, as your Knoxville contractor will tell you. If you don't take care of those materials, they will succumb to the elements. Rot can set in during a single bad rain storm through a simple crack in the wood, so you must be prepared.


As your Knoxville contractor, have seen some pretty beat up decks in our day. When you start with a wooden building material, you must remember to take proper care of it. Failure to do so will result in cracking and splintering, creating dangerous situations to walk on or to use for everyday situations. As your Nashville windows and roofing provider, we have to stress that the same maintenance that goes in to other parts of your home must be taken for your wooden decking.


Even if your wood is weather treated, you should take steps to give it extra protection. A solid weather sealant is the best option for your weather abused wooden decking. This should be applied promptly after the deck is constructed, and kept in good condition thereafter. This sealant will protect the wood of your decks against the majority of the weathering that it will encounter.


Once the wood has begun to splinter and crack it is generally too late to try and save it. Home owners try various methods, such as applying thick coats of paint to try to cover the cracks, but the water damage has already begun at this point. The only thing the paint will do is make the decking too hot to walk on in the sun, and visibly hide damage until the board is so weak and rotted from within that it falls apart beneath you.


As your Knoxville contractor, we urge protecting the wooden components of your decking properly from the beginning. Even if you only stain the wood with traditional wood stains, you are still giving it more of a chance against the elements than it would have otherwise. It is this protection that will make your investment last and give your family an area that they can enjoy for years to come.


When your deck has simply had too much stress on it, and needs to be replaced, we suggest doing so as promptly as possible. Once those boards start cracking and rotting, there is little that you can do except replace the porch. For your own family's safety, have the deck or patio fixed as soon as is possible. Letting the wood continue to warp and rot away under your feet is only asking for a disaster. Avoid potential lawsuits and accidents on your property by inspecting the wooden planks of your existing deck or patio today.

Tennessee Contractor Poses The Big Roofing Questions

It has become evident to you that a new roof is needed on your home or business. The constant leaks, and having to run about with buckets and trash cans to keep the water off your floors every time that it rains is a dead giveaway that something is seriously wrong over your head. But now you are faced with a very important choice from your Tennessee roofing specialist: metal, or shingles?

Both of these options have their upsides and their downsides, and both have similar installation costs. Your Tennessee contractor will be the first to tell you that this is a very important decision, and that the outcome will affect both the value and the livability of your home for the next several decades. Here is a guide to help you decide which Tennessee roofing material you should settle on.

Metal Roofing

The metal roofing is a relative newcomer to the stage, as your Tennessee contractor will tell you. The modern metal roof has little in common with its ancestor. These are brightly colored versions of many common metals, including different types of steel, tin, and even titanium, that are applied over your existing roof structure. They come in different patterns as well. If you like the look of shingles, but you're tired of playing find the missing piece to the shingle puzzle after every good storm, your Tennessee roofing specialists will probably recommend switching to a strong metal roofing substance instead.

Metal roofing is good for reflecting the sun's heat away from your house, but still holds radiant heat within so that you can save on your energy costs. The bright colors that it comes in won't fade over time, meaning that a replacement panel you install 16 years from now will be the same color of Caribbean Blue that you put on your roof today. It will hold a weather resistant seal for the same life span as a shingle roof, and provides far fewer seams where water could sneak in. Importantly though, the harder types of metal will stay in place when assaulted with hail stones or strong winds.


Shingle Roofing

Modern shingle roofing has also come a long way since you had your current roof installed on your home. Your Tennessee contractor will be able to tell you all about the modern designs, including its durability and resistance to strong winds up, up to 80 mph for some brands.

Tennessee roofing options for shingles come in a variety of colors as well, so you can be picky in having them match your house or make a statement against it. The shingle design means that your home will have the more traditional curb appeal that people are expecting when they view a home. Modern shingles are designed to hold more heat in the home, providing you with a 60% better energy performance than your old shingles offered, which will translate into savings on your energy bill.

5 Reasons To Let Knoxville Roofers Protect Your Gutters

While your current gutter system is designed to protect your home from being exposed to rain water and snow melt, you have to ask yourself if you're happy with the way the entire system works. Not just how the water is captured, or how the system looks in relation to your entire house, but the entire package.

Here are 5 reasons why you should consider having your gutter system improved by your Knoxville roofing specialists.

Gutter Overflow - Having your gutters overflow can be more than just an annoyance. Any point where your gutter overflows is a location where all of that concentrated runoff is splashing down around your home. This escaped storm water pools along the perimeter of your home, and can lead to flooding, leaks, and rot taking up residence within your home. Protected gutters change the angle that the water enters your gutter system at, reducing overflow risk and fixing those stubborn corner spots that overflow in every storm.

Ice Dams - Here at Weather Tamer, Your Chattanooga roofing specialists will be the first to tell you how much damage a frozen dam of ice can cause to your entire gutter system. Instead of the melt water draining away like it is supposed to, that solid block of ice will cause this water to pool in your gutters and along your roof. Before you know it, you'll end up with damage to your roof and leaks inside your home. Our gutter systems keep your drains clear, preventing these ice dams from forming.

 

Debris Clogs - An unprotected gutter system will collect the debris that washes off of your roof. After a hard storm and frequently during the fall season, your gutters will be overrun with leaves and twigs. Your unprotected system will form hazardous clogs that will back water up, and introduce rot and mold in close proximity to your home. As your Knoxville roofing specialist will tell you, the gutter protection system creates such a small gap along your gutters that water may enter, but this and other types of debris will not. Debris washes straight off the roof, leaving your gutters clear.
 

Peace Of Mind - What better way is there to know that your gutter system can handle the spring storms than with gutter protection? Our Chattanooga roofing specialists will be able to install these systems in only a couple of days along your gutters. Since we only employ licensed and certified technicians, never sub-contractors, you know that your installation will be completed on time and finished correctly.

Weather Resistant - You don't need to worry about our gutter protection system blowing off in a bad storm. Our Chattanooga and Knoxville roofers install this system at a low angle that prevents the wind from getting under it and ripping it off your roof. Whatever spring can throw at you, our gutter protection system will keep your home same and looking good.