A new roof is on the list of pricier home improvement projects commonly taken on by property owners, especially for older homes. Thus, if you’ve been considering taking on a roof replacement of your own, you might be wondering, “Is it even worth the investment?”

Before you run from the hefty price-tag, here are 10 of the top benefits of a new roof, and why you should consider making the investment.

Peace Of Mind

If left unrepaired, a damaged or dated roof can be incredibly problematic.

Water intrusion can cause extensive damage to the various components of your roofing system and cause issues with the overall stability of the roof itself.

The damage can also extend to the interior of your home and cause problems with warping or failing walls, ceilings, and floors, and it can even create the perfect environment for mold to take hold in your home.

You might be wondering whether or not you’ll likely experience these more severe issues or if there’s a way to know how long you have until your roof is something you need to consider replacing.

There are general guidelines that speak to the typical useful life of a roof based on the age and the type of roof you have, and those guidelines typically range from 15 to 25 years.

However, just because your roof is younger than this range, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t consider a roof replacement if you’re currently experiencing issues with your roof.

Alternatively, though far more unlikely, if you have a roof that exceeds 25 years of age, it may still be in decent shape. However, it will eventually need replacement.

When deciding to replace your roof, you’re not only investing in keeping your home safe, healthy, and beautiful, but you’re also investing in up to 25 years worth of peace of mind.

You’re trusting your roof’s ability to weather any storm on behalf of your entire home, and you want to feel confident when you do so.

Improving Your Home’s Value

Though not as fun and sparkly as a new kitchen, a new roof does wonders for your home’s value.

Everyone wants to feel safe, dry, and secure in their homes, and they want to know that they can avoid having to perform costly repairs over the next few years.

Prospective home buyers want the same things.

This set of wants translates to market value and time on the market.

In general, homes with older, damaged roofs not only take longer to sell, but they sell for less than newer homes or older homes with newer roofs and mechanicals.

This makes all the sense in the world when you consider the cost of a new roof.

If your buyers are spending their life savings on a down payment to buy your home, it tracks that they wouldn’t also want to spend an additional $10k to $20k on replacing a roof.

You might be thinking, “Wait… that’s a LOT of money to spend on a new roof for someone else to enjoy. Will I get the money back that I put into a new roof?”

To answer this question, let’s consider that the National Association of the Remodeling Industry found that installing a new roof provides an average return of 109%, meaning that you might profit from replacing your roof before selling your home.

Curb Appeal

Roofs can play a large part in the overall aesthetic of a home and are, in part, why there are so many roofing materials to choose from when replacing your roof or building a new home.

There’s also no hiding the condition of a roof, and even a layman can typically identify when a roof has seen better days based solely on its appearance.

Sure, an asphalt roof will perform a bit differently and have different costs associated with installation than a clay tile or metal roof, but the appearance of the roof is a huge consideration for homeowners.

A metal roof can give the home a more industrial look while providing wonderful performance during snow storms. A cedar shingle roof can make a simple ranch home look like it’s straight out of a fairy tale.

The type of roof you choose can completely change the overall look of your home for the better, especially if your roof is older, has missing or loose shingles, or has been water-stained in areas by an air conditioning unit or blackened over time by chimney smoke.

Replacing your roof can be just the boost you need to massively improve your home’s curb appeal.

Plenty Of Roofing Material Options

Did we mention that there are tons of roofing material options out there?

This isn’t only important when it comes to curb appeal and achieving the look you’re going for. It also matters in terms of material and installation costs, your particular energy efficiency needs, the climate where your home is located, and the construction of your home.

For example, white, built-up, flat roofs are very common in the southwest, where reflecting heat is the goal, where rain is minimal, and where snow-loading is not a concern.

However, you’d be hard-pressed to find this type of roof in the northeast, where the ease with which snow can slide off your roof is of utmost importance, and the overall high levels of precipitation are important to consider.

Some roofs, like asphalt roofs and built-up roofs, are quite inexpensive when comparing their costs with their overall performance and useful life, while others are more expensive but provide character and performance qualities to a home that might be important enough to the owner to justify the added costs.

Whatever your roofing needs and budget, you can find a material that will work for you.

Making Your Home More Energy Efficient

Roofing technology has come a long way over the past few decades. For example, you might assume that there isn’t much engineering involved in an asphalt shingle.

However, somewhere along the way, manufacturers of this material realized that reflecting heat away from the house leads to lower energy absorption and higher energy efficiency for the whole home in warmer climates. So, they began to implement this concept into the design of modern asphalt shingles made with reflective materials.

If your home is located in a cooler climate, but your roof was constructed of light-colored materials, and you’re considering replacing your roof anyway, you might choose darker roofing materials to help your home absorb more heat during colder months, thus reducing your oil, natural gas, or electric bill.

When replacing your roof, you might even have the opportunity to improve your attic’s ventilation, the purpose of which is to help hot, humid air escape.

This is important for both warm and cool climates.

In warm climates, improving your attic’s ventilation can help remove warm, rising air and reduce the overall cost of cooling your home, prevent mold growth, and improve the longevity of your roofing material.

In cool climates, proper ventilation helps prevent ice damming from melting snow while also removing moisture from the attic, which is especially important in areas that experience higher levels of humidity.

While addressing these other concerns, replacing your roof may also lend itself to the process of incorporating improved insulation underneath your roofing material.

Better insulation typically equates to higher energy efficiency and lower energy costs, and incorporating or replacing roofing insulation is no different.

You may find that your roof is not insulated but that your ceiling is, especially if you have an attic.

In this scenario, your attic floor may be covered in loose insulation.

But did you know that you could insulate directly underneath your roof as well?

This could even allow you to use your attic as additional, heated square footage after the loose insulation is covered or removed, assuming it’s a large enough space.

Quieter During Storms

Depending on the roofing material you choose, a new roof can diffuse outside noise and provide a sound barrier during rain or hail events or times of high winds.

Asphalt shingles, clay tiles, and concrete tiles are considered the quietest roofing options, but even metal roofs, which are notorious for being noisy when it rains, are comparably quiet when installed properly with the appropriate decking, underlayment, and insulation.

In general, the more textured the surface of the roofing material, and the thicker the material, the quieter the roof will be during storms – even for metal roofs.

Maintaining Structural Integrity

There are three main structural components of your home: the foundation, the frame, and the roof.

If one of these three components experiences a major failure, the entire structure fails.

For example, if your exterior wall crumbles, your roof will collapse. If your foundation experiences a major shift, your entire house will shift with it. If your roof fails, your framing will eventually fail.

Each component is heavily reliant on the other.

This is why it’s incredibly important to maintain the structural integrity of your home by ensuring that the roof, the foundation, and the framing of your home remain in good condition, and it just so happens that the roof is arguably the most accessible and affordable component to replace and maintain.

That’s because you can replace your roof without affecting any other aspect of your home.

If you need a new foundation, on the other hand, you’re looking at not only the cost of the material and labor for the foundation, but you’re also looking at the material and labor costs associated with tearing up and replacing or moving floors and walls.

You might even have to lift your entire house using a heavy-duty jack system. If you must repair the house framing, you might need to lift your entire roof system much in the same way.

To put things into perspective, your roof is the only structural component you can replace while safely living in your house.

With this in mind, it makes sense to maintain this part of your house as best as you can so that the other structural components also remain in good condition.

Your New Roof Will Have A Warranty

When you buy a home, you must perform your own due diligence. If you or your inspectors don’t catch that spongey section of roof where water has pooled during rainstorms for 15 years, it’s generally not the seller’s problem anymore – it’s yours.

But replacing your roof is not the same thing. It is not a set-it-and-forget-it situation in the mind of your roofing contractor. They know that this is a big purchase for you and that you are entrusting them to a major and necessary structural component of your home.

As such, if you replace your roof and experience any issues with it over the following 2, 5, 10, or even 25 years, your roofing contractor will see to correcting those issues (depending on the specific terms of your warranty), typically free of charge.

Repairing Hidden Problems

You may not know whether your roof has any problems. Maybe you haven’t noticed any water intrusion, maybe there’s an unsealed vent pipe that wasn’t caught by your home inspector, or maybe the roofing looks okay even though it’s older than the other roofs in the neighborhood.

Underneath your shingles, though, you may have issues that you’re not even aware of yet.

Replacing your roof will reveal these problems and allow you to deal with them promptly.

It May Be Covered By Insurance

If your current roof has suffered damage from a recent storm or other covered peril, its replacement may be covered under your homeowner’s insurance policy.

Your policy will likely state which situations are covered and which situations are excluded.

Typically, if your roof is older than 10 years of age and simply requires maintenance, repair, or replacement due to its age, a roof replacement likely would not be covered by a standard homeowner’s policy.

However, if your roof is less than 10 years of age and damaged by a specific event, make sure you check to see if that event is covered by your policy.