Sep 6, 2021 | Home Improvement
Storms can be unpredictable, and so storms can badly damage your roof. For homeowners, it is difficult to recognize what kind of damage you encounter following an extreme storm. It does not matter the type of storm; all storms can cause damaged roofs and missing shingles.
The best thing you can do is to determine the steps in taking action following a severe storm. Doing the correct steps will make insurance claims and repairs fast. It can mean you get your house back to a secure and safe condition as quickly as possible.
Be sure to follow the steps when it comes to storm damage to your roof.
1. Estimate the Roof Damage – Do It Only When the Coast Becomes Clear
Hold the urge to check your roof until the storm has passed and the sky is clear. Icy or wet debris or spots on the roof can cause injuries, slip, or fall. Of course, you must also think about the more dangerous problems such as downed electricity lines and unstable roof surfaces.
Once you assure that the area is safe, go and assess the storm damage to your roof as best as you can. Scan everything thoroughly. It will help you talk about your needs with your roofing contractor and insurance agent immediately. Moreover, do the roof assessment during the daytime since it is difficult to assess what has happened without proper lighting. Then:
- Use binoculars to see clearly without needing to climb on top of the roof.
- Assess the size of the area and gather precise details about the damage.
- Take note of the exposed parts of the roof, especially looking for plywood, tarpaper, or ends of missing shingles.
- Identify any missing shingles and the seriousness of the damaged areas.
2. Start With Temporary Repairs to Minimize the Damage to Your Property
If your roof has experienced severe damage directly above your living space, you will have to take immediate actions to deter property damage from leaking water or falling debris.
- Put garbage bins or buckets under the leaks.
- Remove any valuable or treasured items away from the leaks.
- Place trash bags or plastic over furniture, rugs, and other stuff that may be under the leaks.
3. Contact Your Roofing Company or Insurance Company
You may be able to recognize for yourself if the storm damage to your roof is extreme enough to need a call to your insurance company. In most cases, it makes more sense to call your roofing contractor for repair. If the storm damage to your roof was widespread, it is an excellent idea to reach your insurance agent first. You may find that the roofing experts are busy managing emergencies.
Nevertheless, if you contact a roofing contractor, keep in mind that you may find traveling roofing teams. These roofing teams come around storm-damaged areas to get some clients. The problem with this is, when a homeowner is in a desperate situation, they take advantage of the frightened homeowners who need assistance right away.
A better idea is to pick a local, certified, qualified, and equipped roofing company that proves many experiences repairing roofs in your community. While they may have a lot of repairs in the face of extensive storm damage, a trusted and reputable roofing contractor will call you as soon as possible. They will let you know what help they can give and the necessary actions needed to do or at least refer to another reputable roofing company.
Pro Tip: Never Put off or Neglect Roof Damage
Even if you find ways to patch things up, especially the damage to your roof, it is significant to hire an expert roofing assessment and repair right away. While you may prevent a noticeable leak, there is no telling what kind of other damages could be occurring behind the scenes. The last thing you want is hidden leaks to create problems, like mold or structural damage in your home. It follows all the time after roof storm damage that does not get the proper professional repair.
Assure your home and roof are as secure and safe as possible by following through with professional roof inspections from a roofing company you can rely on and trust. At Rugged Roofing and Restoration, we are confident and proud to be one of the best in Richland Hills, TX. You can depend on us for the quality roofing services and a commitment to satisfy your family with our roof damage repair. Call us now to get help with your damaged roof. Let us repair it for you.
Last updated Feb 12, 2021 | Home Improvement
With mortgage interest rates at their lowest in 50 years and demand for homes surging across the USA, there’s a chance you’ve considered selling your home before this trend dies down.
Of course, you want to get as much as possible when you do decide to sell but holding on for even better days is a risky option. Fortunately, there are some more reliable ways to boost your home’s value right now.
These are the things that increase home value and can also help you sell your home faster.
1. Roof Replacement
Replacing your home’s roof is an expensive undertaking, and you’re probably resistant to spending that kind of money on roofing contractors.
Remember, a new roof lasts for 20 years or more and prospective buyers know this.
There’s a huge difference in the property value of homes with a leaky roof, those with a sound but older roof, and those with new roofs. So, it’s worth the investment.
The bottom line is if you want to sell your home for the best price without spending any money, your best option is to google, ”we buy houses company” and take a cash offer for your home as-is.
2. Energy-Efficient Additions
Installing solar panels and other energy-efficient innovations is a win-win when you’re planning to sell your home. Not only are these innovations a huge drawcard for homebuyers, but they can increase the value of your home by as much as 33%.
What’s more, you’ll save on energy costs the whole time your home’s on the market.
3. Smart Technology
The latest smart appliances, gadgets, and lighting add convenience and cost savings to your home. They can also increase your selling price by $1,500 or more.
The more smart technology you have, the more you can increase your price. Plus up to 77% of prospective homeowners put smart tech on top of their wishlist when looking for a new home.
4. New Appliances
Modern energy-efficient appliances offer a high ROI when you sell your house. Homebuyers are less inclined to dispute your asking price when they know they can save on the expensive maintenance that comes with old, faulty home appliances.
Check your appliances regularly, keep them well-maintained, and replace them when necessary.
Again, you’ll get to enjoy the benefits of using these new appliances while you’re waiting to sell your home too.
5. Increase Your Living Areas
Adding a bathroom or taking some walls down to create an open-plan space adds enormous appeal to your home. Although the ROI on these improvements isn’t huge, you can get all your money back if you wait for your home equity to improve before you sell.
You’ll also get to live in a vastly improved home in the meantime.
More Things That Increase Home Value
If you’re not intending to sell your home any time soon, remember that there are also things that increase home value without impacting your selling price.
These depend on how you determine value. For example, if you love entertaining friends, an outdoor kitchen could hold enormous value for you.
If you’d like some more home improvement ideas that you can implement and enjoy right now, keep browsing our blog.
Last updated Feb 12, 2021 | Home Improvement
When you are in the plumbing business, you might think that some of the traditional marketing methods are perfectly enough for you to grow. After all, everyone needs these services from time to time and all you have to do is sit tight and wait for a call. You can’t exactly sell these services from door to door or anything like that. It’s enough for people to have heard about you at some point in their lives, right?
You might be right to a certain extent, but plumbers definitely need their own marketing strategies in order to succeed: https://academy.getjobber.com/resources/articles/marketing-strategies-for-plumbers/
Thinking that digital marketing is unnecessary for these specific companies is certainly a huge mistake. Taking your business online is rather important no matter the industry you are in and plumbing is no exception to this rule. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should just randomly choose and use certain aspects of online marketing while neglecting some others. Some techniques are definitely more effective for this line of business than the others, but it’s important for you to know which ones.
If you don’t take your time to do the research and understand exactly which techniques can work for you, chances are that you will just spend your time and your money on trying to advertise in a completely wrong way. That won’t bring in any customers and everybody knows that bringing customers is the ultimate goal. So, make sure to get properly informed before starting out with one digital marketing campaign or another.
I can understand that you might be a little bit confused about this since digital marketing is a rather broad term that encompasses far too many things and you might not know what to focus on and what to ignore. That’s why I have decided to share some useful tips with you and thus help you use digital marketing to your advantage and grow your plumbing business with its help. This business plan might be of help as well. So, let us now cut to the chase and proceed to those tips.
Use Local SEO
As you already know, people nowadays use the Internet whenever they want to search for something they need, even if it’s located right there in their own building. This is just the way things work in the modern world because searching online is much easier than going through phone books or something like that. This is a situation that you should not only adjust to but also use to your advantage because you will get to be the plumbing company “near me” when someone makes a search like that.
What is it, however, that you need to do in order to appear on that particular page when someone searches for plumbing services located near them? Well, for starters, you will actually have to be located near those people doing the searches, because there’s no point in deceiving anyone. Then, you will need to employ certain local SEO strategies in order to help those people find you whenever typing words like those in their browsers.
Why is this significant, though? Let me explain. When people search for plumbers located near them, chances are that they are not just getting informed, but that they actually need these services right away. When they find you among the results, you will be the one taken into consideration when they decide to hire someone. If they don’t find you this way, however, then your competitors will definitely be happy.
Image by muneebfarman from Pixabay
Don’t Ignore The “Google My Business” Page
If we were to draw a parallel between some old ways of searching for businesses and some new ones, then we would definitely need to compare the yellow pages to today’s Googly My Business pages. Sure, the searching part is easier, but if you aren’t listed in this directory, then you have almost no chance of getting found. Just like the old times, am I right?
The only thing is, though, that being in the directory isn’t quite enough if you want to be among the first ones to be found. What you need to do instead is optimize this page with local keywords in order for customers to find you more easily. Of course, don’t forget to add your contact information as well, so that those customers can get in touch with you easily.
Target Emergency Plumbing Keywords
When you think about digital marketing for plumbers, you cannot exactly fail to notice that there are certain things you need to shift your focus towards in order to succeed. For example, targeting people who don’t really need these services is not exactly a great move, since people are rarely going to write down your information and keep you in mind just in case they might end up needing you. On the contrary, people usually search for these services the moment they need them and they are highly unlikely to be ready to wait for days for you to fix their problems.
This is exactly why you should focus on targeting emergency plumbing keywords. Plumbing issues are almost always an emergency that needs to be solved right away and that’s what people will search for – someone to solve their issues right away. So, make sure to optimize your content so that you are found when people are in need of immediate assistance and then show how you can help and resolve their problems right away. By doing that, you are most likely going to gain a lot of new customers.
Start A Blog
Starting a blog will definitely help you be recognized as relevant by Google and thus stay among the top search results where people can find you when they need plumbing services. Of course, you shouldn’t run a blog on a completely unrelated topic and expect to be found by potential customers. To put things simply, your blog needs to feature relevant, plumbing-related, content that can increase your traffic and thus potentially attract more customers.
Last updated Feb 3, 2021 | Home Improvement
If you’re selling your home, you might be debating whether or not to do some remodeling first.
On one hand, updating some rooms might allow you to raise your asking price. But how do you know the money you’re putting in will offset the cost of renovations?
Though it might feel like a gamble, you can put the odds in your favor. There are some remodeling projects that tend to have the best return on your investment.
Are you looking to maximize your profits from selling your home? Get the best ROI with these valuable home improvements.
1. Kitchen
A kitchen remodeling project will definitely pay-off, but only if you keep it small. After a certain point, a major renovation will stop paying for itself.
Which is actually great news for you!
Instead of gutting the kitchen, pick one or two things that really need some TLC. Getting new cabinets is a great option. They make a huge impact and can elevate the entire room.
2. Garage Door
Studies show that renovating the exterior of a house usually pays off more than doing the interior. A new garage door will come with a substantial price tag, but you will see a return on this investment.
The reason fixing up an exterior pays off is mostly because of curb appeal. When a buyer steps out of their car, you want their first impression of your home to be positive.
3. Deck
A new deck will definitely give you a great investment return. However, not every deck is created equally. A classic wooden deck is more valuable to potential buyers than a composite deck.
To build a new wooden deck, you’re probably going to be spending somewhere between 13,000-15,000 dollars. Though it’s costly, if you have a nice backyard, a deck will make it feel a lot more inviting. You want potential buyers to see it and start daydreaming about the afternoon BBQ’s they’ll throw!
4. Bathroom
Along with the kitchen, the bathroom is one of the only other interior areas that are worth renovating. Luckily, you don’t have to go crazy with this remodel either.
Instead, take note of how the cabinets, tiles, and countertops are looking. If they look dated or moldy from years of use, get them replaced.
5. Roof
A new roof is very attractive to people checking out your house. It holds a lot of logistical and aesthetic value.
A leaky roof causes tons of problems, but it’s also expensive and inconvenient to replace. If potential buyers know they’d have to make this renovation when they move in, they’ll just move on to another home instead.
Get the Best ROI with These 5 Home Renovations
Don’t waste money on expensive renovations that won’t dramatically increase your home’s value. Instead, try these 5 options and get the best ROI possible.
When your renovations are complete, it’s time to stage the house for selling. Need some attractive new quilts and comforters to spruce up your bedrooms? Then check out our spring sale!
