Many people don’t realize how important the weather is when having work done on your roof. The weather can significantly impact when roofing crews can do the work. Of course, it’s important that your roofer do a good job of communicating with you when that happens.

Let’s look at a few weather-related factors that can affect when we—and other roofers—can work on your roof.

Temperature

You may think that the summer is a great time to get work done on your roof. And often, that’s the case. But if the temperatures get too high, it can be dangerous.

In the summer, our crews start work early in the morning as the sun is just barely coming up. That way, they can get a lot of work done before it becomes too hot.

Once it starts getting hot, they may split the shift up and come back after it cools off again, then work until it gets dark. Temperatures over 100 degrees can be dangerous on the roof, and we want to keep our team safe.

There are different issues when it gets cold during the winter. While roofing crews can work even when it’s chilly, their fingers start to get stiff at a certain point. Even with thick gloves on, they may not be able to do their job well.

The cold impacts the material we use to roof your house as well. As a result, most shingle manufacturers recommend 45 degrees and higher when installing shingles.

Wind

It should come as no surprise that the wind can be an issue here in Oklahoma. Obviously, we want to keep our people safe when it’s tornado weather. But wind can be a problem way before there’s a tornado warning.

Strong winds can be a major problem when replacing decking on a roof. Decking consists of large sheets of engineered wood panels known as oriented strand boards or OSB. In strong winds, they essentially become sails. You don’t want one of those blowing across the yard and hitting your house, your neighbor’s house, someone’s car, or—even worse—a person.

Even if we’re not replacing decking, strong winds can blow shingles around. Whether they’re old shingles we’re removing or new ones we’re installing, the last thing you want is those shingles all over your property and the entire neighborhood.

Because of all that, we don’t do roofing work on very windy days.

Rain

It probably seems obvious that rain would be a hazard for our crew if they were up on your roof. But even a forecast of rain affects how we schedule jobs. Imagine if a roofing crew removed your old roof, left for the day, then it started raining. That wouldn’t be good!

And once the rain stops, our crew can’t just hop back up on the roof. For safety reasons, we have to wait for the roof to dry until we start working on it again.

We want to fix or replace your roof in a timely manner. But the weather doesn’t always cooperate. We’ll do our best to communicate with you and let you know about any delays. Always feel free to ask us if you have any questions.