​When leaves and other debris clog up your gutters to the point that water is flooding over, you can end up having issues with rot on your roofing. This is one of the main reasons that it's important to keep your gutters clean.

​The fascia is that board that runs right behind your gutter. Overflowing water can damage this important component of your gutter system.

If you're in need of gutter services, be sure to get in touch with a reputable professional. For gutter services in the Washington DC area, the experts to contact are at Boyd Construction Co Inc at 202-223-ROOF. Go ahead and give a call today!

A reflective roof coating is applied to roofs to help reflect more sunlight from the surface, thus reducing the amount of heat absorbed by the structure. Also known as cool roofing, these roof coatings are available in a number of colors, surfaces, and thicknesses and can make a huge difference when it comes to saving money on energy costs and usage. On top of that, they also aid in creating more comfortable indoor environments, and play a role in prolonging the life of roofs and roofing materials.
Reflective Roof Coating 101: How a Reflective Roof Coating Works
Cool roof coatings work to keep your home cool in two distinct ways. The first is by solar reflectance, or the coating’s ability to reflect sunlight away as soon as it hits your structure. Instead of absorbing the sunlight and heat like a traditional roof, a cool roof reflects the light and heat away from your home, keeping your home cooler in the process. The other way that cool roofing helps to keep your home cooler is through thermal emittance. These roof coatings are now made with special materials that increase your roof’s thermal emittance level, or your roof’s ability to radiate absorbed heat back into the atmosphere instead of down into your home. It’s this potent combination of high solar reflectance and thermal emittance that make these roof coatings so effective at keeping your home cool and your energy costs and usage down.

Reflective Roof Coating and Energy Savings
What kind of energy costs and usage savings are we talking about here? Significant ones. It’s important to realize that the amount of benefits you get from your reflective coating will vary depending on the shape of your home, the coating you choose, how energy efficient your home already is, your local climate, and whether you use air conditioning or not. However, if you live in a hot climate that experiences warm temperatures and sunny days for a substantial portion of the year, you can expect energy savings of up to 70%. If not, your energy savings from applying a reflective roof coating could range anywhere from 20% to 70% when it?s all said and done.



Shopping for a Reflective Roof Coating
The most important decision you’re going to make when shopping for cool roof coatings is the color. Reflective coatings come in white, a variety of darker colors, and in high reflection coatings. What you decide on here can make a huge difference. White coatings are by far the most effective, and reflect anywhere from 50% to 90% of the sunlight and heat that hit your roof. Highly reflective coatings, which most often resemble a paintable aluminum coating, come in second with reflectance levels in the 60% to 70% range. And if you decide to choose looks over performance, colored coatings significantly reduce the reflectivity ratings to 15% to 35% (which is still better than no coating at all). When you make your decision, keep in mind also that if your new roof coating reflects enough light and heat (65% for flat roofs and 25% for sloped roofs), it will also qualify as an Energy Star rated roof and will earn you tax breaks on top of the high energy savings.

Application and Other Improvements
These coatings can be applied on your own, you can hire a professional to do the job for you, or you can look for roofing materials that have reflective coatings already baked onto the surface. And if you’re serious about improving the energy efficiency of your home, talk to an energy auditor or general contractor about other modifications you can make to improve your efficiency ratings. Improving traditional insulation in your attic, installing reflective attic insulation, and improving attic ventilation are all smart steps to take, along with applying reflective coatings, in order to get maximum energy efficiency out of your home.

Originial Article *https://www.homeadvisor.com/r/reflective-roof-coatings/*

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1. It’s old. Most roofs come with 20-year warranties. So if your roof hasn’t been replaced in well over two decades, there’s a good chance that you should start thinking about putting a new one on your home.
2.  It looks bad from the street. Curb appeal is important, and you don’t want your roof to detract from it. Stand in your street and check for large areas of disrepair, widespread “streaking” on your shingles, or worn areas around chimneys and vents.
3. Its shingles look bad. You should also conduct a close-up examination of your roof’s shingles. If many of them appear wet, stained, curled, bent, broken, or darker than normal (or are missing completely), then consider replacing all of them at once.
4. There are granules all over the place. When shingles begin deteriorating, they break off in small pieces that look like dark, coarse sand. If you start seeing granules in your gutters, yard, and landscaping, they’re coming from your roof.
5. There is staining, peeling, or bubbling paint. A leaky roof can cause deterioration of exterior paint around the roofline. But it also can seep into your home’s walls and stain your inside walls, too.
6. Its deck looks bad. The roofing “deck” consists of the support beams that hold your shingles and roof up. If these beams are sagging or show evidence of moisture damage, you should replace both your shingles and your roof deck.
7. It’s leaking into your attic. You might see signs of water inside your attic after a rainstorm (or when snow melts). But your roof can also leak light; if you can see inside your attic without a light, it may be roof replacement time.
8. Your energy bills are rising. A good roof acts as an insulator against heat and cold invading your home. If it’s not doing its job, you’ll notice increasing utility bills, because your air conditioner or heater is having to work harder to maintain a comfortable temperature.

A roof replacement is an expensive investment in your home, so you’ll want to make sure it’s done right. Make sure you find an experienced contractor who is up front about the cost and stands behind his work. And don’t procrastinate too long in replacing your roof; otherwise, you may be also paying for related damage caused by a sub par roof.
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