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Roofs in the Winter
As I write this article, I’m looking outside – the weather can only be described as gorgeous. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and it smells like summer. Most of us aren’t thinking of winter right now, and that’s something to be grateful for. For a moment, though, I’ll ask you to consider winter – but only so you can prepare for it, so you can relax a bit more during the winter months. There’s a lot of misconception about how roofs work in the wintertime – we want to clear up those misconceptions, to help you rest easy when the snow comes back around.
Misconception #1 – Flat Roofs Are Bad for Winter Climates
My father loves to say that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. The idea behind the notion is this: if you know a little about something, you might think you know everything about it, and be blind to your own ignorance. This is often the case when people are talking about flat roofs. They understand a bit of physics, so they know things like “triangles are the strongest shape” and “slopes will allow more snow to fall off”. Put those together, and it seems steeply slanted roofs must be able to stand up to snow better than flat ones, and that flat roofs would be at risk of collapse.
Not so! No matter how the roof is built, flat or slanted, there’s going to be a minimum load limit. Load limits include the weight of the roof itself, as well as any permanently attached structures – that’s known as the dead load. Places without snow in the winter will have a lower minimum live load limit – live loads are temporary loads. All this to say, if you have an area with a lot of snow, your roof will have a fairly high live load limit; it’s part of the building code!
The second part of this misconception is that flat roofs will lead to pooling water, which could lead to water damage. Here’s where you get to peak behind the curtain a bit; flat roofs have the slightest pitch to them, allowing water to drain off. Think about it: if that wasn’t the case, water would puddle on your roof after every rainfall; that’s no good. All this to say, worries about flat roofs are greatly exaggerated.
Misconception #2 – De-Icing Cables are Good and Useful
This one is a bit of a doozy. Obviously, you don’t want a bunch of ice filling your gutters or overhangs; not only can it damage the structure of your gutters, but it can also cause water damage to your home, because the meltwater has nowhere to go but into your shingles. A common hotfix nowadays is to use de-icing cables; basically, cables that heat up sections of your roof in order to prevent water from freezing into ice.
There’s a lot of problems with these cables. The first is that they cannot possibly cover your entire roof, unless you’re willing to spend way too much money on them. That means there will always be sections of your roof that are cold, and sections where ice can accumulate. Worse yet, if de-icing cables are improperly placed, they can melt snow, which turns to water, then freezes whenever the de-icing cable isn’t; in other words, they can actually contribute to the creation of ice dams!
The second problem with these cables is that they rarely last long; they are, after all, long, slim cables that get covered by very heavy snow every year. It’s hard to find a manufacturer with a long-lasting warranty on these cables. They also cost a lot to run; after all, you’ve got to power the things, they run all winter long, and all they do is turn energy to heat. All in all, the cables are an expensive proposition.
How, then, are you supposed to stop those pesky ice dams when de-icing cables don’t do the trick? Well, the truth of the matter is that ice dams shouldn’t be happening in the first place. Consider this: ice dams only happen when the snow is hot enough to melt in some areas but cold enough to freeze in others. The primary culprit? Heat from your own home is going into the attic, and heating up the bottom side of the roof above freezing. We spoke earlier about minimum load limits; another value you should be aware of in building codes is the R-Value; a measure of how insulated your attic and roof have to be. Your attic and roof should actually prevent heat from melting the snow, in the same way, that they prevent the cold from entering your home. When you’re experiencing frequent ice dams, it’s a sign that your home’s r-value isn’t up to snuff; you should have a roofing contractor come and take a look.
Family Handyman ran an article on preventing ice dams; part of the article recommends raking snow off of your roof. I’d advise against doing that; shingles are extremely brittle in the wintertime, and if you break your shingles, you’ll suddenly be battling a worse fate than ice dams; it’s not worth the risk. For those who did break shingles inadvertently in the wintertime…
Misconception #3 – You Can’t Repair a Roof In the Wintertime
We can repair your roof in the wintertime. The repair isn’t going to be pretty; in fact, it will more or less be something to tide you over until the springtime comes. HGTV legend Mike Holmes has an article on this very topic; winter re-roofing is doable but undesirable. It’s dangerous to get up on the roof when snow is blowing, ice is everywhere, and cold temperatures threaten to snap shingles, but our pros will get up there and do what needs to be done, patching things until springtime comes around.
Even though this is possible, we implore you to get fixes done right now, in the summertime; that’s why I’ve taken you away from what’s probably a beautiful summer’s day to tell you about winter preparation. Getting all of this stuff done now will save you time, money, and hassle, so winterize your roof before winter actually hits.
Should You Paint Before Selling Your Property?
There’s a lot of different reasons to sell your property. You could be downsizing, you could be upsizing, you could be moving to a new city or a new neighborhood; the list of reasons goes on. You might also decide to sell your property because doing so will be profitable, and you’re looking for the best return on investment (ROI) that you can possibly get. The question in the title is a good one, and the answer can vary substantially depending on what your goals are.
Why Paint?
There’s a lot of practical reasons why property owners might choose to paint their property before selling them. The first is that painting your building is a relatively easy task compared to, say, renovating the bathroom. Painting your building creates an immediate visual impact; your exterior paint is likely the first thing a potential buyer is going to see. A new coat of paint is often a very good investment; Remax data says paint has one of the best ROIs you can get with home renovation.
That’s a brief summary of why paint is a go-to project for folks looking to sell their property. You’ll paint before listing, of course; you don’t want to be doing showings with a half-finished paint job on your hands. Next, let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of painting depending on why you’re looking to sell your property.
You’re Moving – Soon
Whether you have a commercial or residential property, you might suddenly need to move out of the building, and that could leave you on a tight timeframe to sell the place. Your immediate inclination might be to say that painting is a bad idea here; after all, every moment not spent selling your property moves you towards potential disaster.
There are a couple of key points to consider here. The first is to consider ROI, but with time instead of money. Let’s say it takes a day to paint the parts of your property you want to spruce up, but the day it takes to paint shaves two days off of how long it takes to sell the property – you’ve just saved a day. You can use that day to see if you can get a better offer, to prepare for the move, or – heaven forbid – to take a break from what is likely a very hectic, very full schedule.
This isn’t as unlikely a scenario as you might think. Keep in mind that a lot of folks shop for properties online before they go in person; that means your posted images need to be top-notch. A good realtor will help with the staging and the posting, but they can only work with what you’ve got; a gorgeous new coat of paint can attract a lot of potential clients.
A fast paint job is what you’re looking for here; a rushed paint job is no good at all. A painting contractor will be able to do commercial or residential property painting quickly, efficiently, and beautifully, so you’ll have the aesthetics you want without losing time.
You Want to Make Money
As I mentioned above, painting your home is has one of the best ROIs you can get from home renovation. One thing you should know is that what exactly you paint can have a pretty substantial impact. That’s not all – how these things are painted will also give wildly different results.
What do I mean by how? Obviously, a hack job isn’t going to sell as well as careful painting, but I want to delve even further. What colour you paint your door can change the value of your house by thousands of dollars. To get a better idea of what I’m talking about, check out this Forbes article on how colour affects your home’s value. There’s a lot of data-driven information about how color affects your home’s resale value, and looking at this data can help you decide exactly what color schemes suit your needs best.
When you’re looking to sell your property to make money, it’s always worth considering whether or not you should hire a professional. Labour is the most cost-intensive part of any property improvement, and paint is one of the more DIY projects you can engage in. Ask yourself honestly: how competent a painter am I, and how long will it take me? You should always keep in mind that your time is money, and if you could be making more money doing something else in the time it would take you to paint, you might be better off hiring a professional. You may also lack confidence in your painting skills; if the paint job looks worse after you’re done than it did before, it’s definitely a bad move. Barring those two things, painting on your own can be extraordinarily rewarding, and could increase the value of your property substantially at little cost.
Can’t paint your whole property? Focus on the areas that need the most work. Interior and exterior painting have similar ROI, so the best move is to dedicate your energy to the areas that are most likely to detract from your building’s value because the paint has deteriorated.
On the Subject of Aesthetics
Hopefully, by now you have a good idea of whether or not painting your building before listing it is a good idea. While we’re on the subject of aesthetics, it’s worth mentioning how changing what building you are in might affect your commercial clients. You might have sold your building for any number of reasons; it’s worth letting your clients know where you’re going to be next. One great way of doing this is with custom print change of address cards; you can get cards that are customized to a number of different demographics, so each client has something that grabs their interest. Aesthetics are important before, during, and after the sale of a property, so they’re always good to keep in mind!
Creating a Memorable School Event
Educators play one of the most important roles in our society; few actors are more pivotal in shaping the minds of our youth. This is a multifaceted task; the lessons you teach are not purely academic. Thoughtful, well-rounded, socially responsible adults are raised, in large part, in schools that provide them the opportunity to think critically, to engage with other students, and to find mentors. Creating a spirit of camaraderie and shared experience is essential to this, and that’s why a school year filled with events is important to their success.
When planning school events, there are three important elements to keep in mind; the budgeting, the buy-in and the big day. Doing an honest evaluation of the first two, with proper preparation for the third, is sure to create the best possible event for all stakeholders.
The Budget
Schools are perennially underfunded; a real shame, because there may be no other system more important in securing a bright future for humanity. That means you’ll have to budget very carefully to pull off great school events. There are a couple of philosophies with which to approach your budgeting; you can hold multiple small events over the course of the year, a few big events, or a mix of the two. While we’ll discuss getting buy-in from various stakeholders later, it’s a good idea to create a sketch of how many events you’d like in a given year, and how much you have in your budget to put towards each event; one a month is usually a good target, with some months events having a smaller budget than other events you feel will be more impactful.
Fundraising efforts are going to be a major source of cash flow for your events, so it’s a good idea to look back on the fundraising efforts of previous years and incorporate those numbers into your budget. This isn’t an exact science, and if you plan on changing up the fundraisers you do, it may change how much money actually comes in; that’s why while it’s good to try to budget in advance, it’s best to wait until the event is actually being planned before you get into more concrete numbers.
The Buy-In
Discussions with stakeholders are the most important part of planning a school event. Given the shoestring budget, most schools have to run events, volunteerism is incredibly important, and to get volunteers, you’ll need stakeholders who are vested in the events you want to create. That’s why you should have a discussion about potential events with students, staff, student council, and the PTA well in advance of actually staging the event. Pull suggestions from these parties about what kind of events they’d like to see; you can even run a poll easily with SurveyMonkey, allowing stakeholders to vote on what events they’d like to see or write in their own.
Once you have accumulated data on what kinds of events students, staff and parents want to see, you can commit to creating the events. This will involve multiple meetings with your stakeholders to make sure those who are interested stay interested. You’ll want to focus on how you’re going to fundraise for the event, what sorts of space, decor, and professionals you’ll need for the event, and when you want the event to occur. Once this is all thought out, you can start bringing in other stakeholders.
Local businesses will often be more than happy to donate their time, money and effort towards your school event. You might be able to get a discount on their goods and services, they might allow you to sell their products as a fundraiser, and they might donate some of their staff’s time and expertise if you want to run an event that requires experts. All you’ll have to do is show their support on the advertisements you create for the event. That’s great promotion for them – helping a school looks great from an ethical standpoint.
There’s a couple of ways to get even more buy-ins for the event. The first is to advertise the event; at the school, around the community, and on social media. Create posters showing the time and date of the event, and go on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to let people know about it; use hashtags and images for the best effect. With sufficient student buy-ins, the students themselves will post about the event, creating a social media presence that’s much more organic.
Another great way of creating buy-in is to find celebrity guest speakers to attend the event; when students, their parents, and their teachers know that their hero is going to be at the event, they’ll be all the more excited to show up. Use a speakers agency to find celebrity speakers; many of them are Canadian legends who have experienced wild success, people your stakeholders are sure to recognize and appreciate.
The Big Day
By the big day, you’ll want to have everything lined up; the space you’re using should be decorated and prepared, your volunteers should be at the ready, and you should have an idea how many people will be attending. More often than not, the space you’ll use is going to be the gymnasium, so you’ll, of course, need to find another way to hold phys ed; consider having a more theoretical phys ed class on the day, or, if it’s nice, host class outside!
Once the event itself is done, you’ll want to do inventory on how well it went. Post-event, you want to survey people again to see how satisfied they were with the event. Check your fundraising goals and compare them to how well you did; look at the budget of the event and see how much you actually spent. Hopefully, you’ve come under budget and over fundraising, but if not, consider surveying to evaluate why! Data gathering is incredibly powerful for your next event; consider how much data you had to use to create this one. Hopefully, you’ve found success, and can repeat it next year!