The Roof

The house has a low roof, covered with asphalt shingles. At the time I signed the contract to buy the house, its roof had very recently been replaced. Between then and the time I moved in, a hailstorm hit this area of Houston, but the roof doesn't seem any the worse for it.

Birds sometimes relax on the roof. Raccoons, squirrels, and possums climb up to the roof in various ways. From there, the mammals managed to get into my attic by creating holes in the soffit screens, but I put a stop to that in late February 2017 by stapling hardware cloth over the soffits.

The roof drains rain water to the gutters or directly onto the surrounding ground. From late fall until April, when the southern live oak dumps its last leaves and catkins, the valleys where the different angles of the roof join, and especially the gutters, hold leaves, sticks, catkins, and dirt. If I don't clean out the gutters before early spring, small plants grow in the material that has accumulated there. The oak drops acorns on the roof later in the spring and it shades the front side of the roof all year. The photos below were all taken on April 3, 2017.

The valley between the front bedroom ridge (to the left) and the main ridge collects the most leaves, catkins and other debris of all the areas of the roof. I swept the roof and cleaned out the gutters in late March, but the oak tree hadn't finished dumping catkins yet. As the debris works its way down the valley, it fills the gutters and piles up there.

This picture shows the roof's main ridge over the living room, kitchen, and garage, taken when I had just swept it. The ridge vents make it possible for small insects to get into the attic, But I have not seen many there.

The eastern slope of the roof accumulates a lot of oak twigs, in addition to some leaves and catkins. This side of the roof drains into a gutter above the east yard, and the gutter gets full by March.

The north-south ridge zigzags down to the back bedroom, forming two valleys that accumulate debris.

Squirrels, possums, and raccoons have a few ways to get onto the roof. The easiest way is to climb the Persian silk tree in the east yard. The mammals can also stand on the fence between the front and back yards and pull themselves up to the gutter. A metal pole was installed right by that fence, perhaps for a tv antenna, at some time in the past. It might also facilitate climbing onto the roof.

History

On March 29, 2015, a large amount of catkin material had accumulated in the front valley under the oak tree.