EPHRATA — Your roof may look ready for winter. But is it really?

“You (think you’re) fine until you see a stain,” said Sergio Miramontes, sales manager for Heavenly Roofing. “And when do you usually see a stain? In the winter. By the time you’re seeing it, it’s been leaking for seven to 10 years. Now you’ve got problems with your attic, probably mold on your sheeting or your insulation. It’s already wet, like cotton candy. It’s created issues, but no homeowner thinks about that.”

The time to find out about problems is before they get big, Miramontes said. Having the home inspected regularly can alert a homeowner to problems that they wouldn’t notice ordinarily. Especially in older homes, Miramontes said; problems develop that aren’t obvious to the untrained eye.

“Even if it’s a couple of nails that don’t have tar, that’s an issue,” he said. “Your pipe boots, they’re cracked. The longer you wait (to have it inspected), the more it’s going to cost you … Next year, your roof is going to cost you more than it did last year.”

It’s best to inspect a roof at least once a year, according to Allstate Insurance, and twice a year if the home is older. Homeowners should bring in a professional to check it, as moving around on a roof is dangerous without the proper training.

When bringing in a professional, it’s important to communicate with them thoroughly, according to the Better Business Bureau. Make sure you get in writing exactly what the contractor is going to do, check your insurance coverage and ask your contractor what they’re going to do if the weather suddenly turns bad. Some roofing specialists close down in the winter, although some, like Heavenly Roofing, work year-round.

“People think that it slows down for roofing in the winter,” said Heavenly Roofing Sales Rep Erick Sanchez. “But if anything, it picks up because of all that moisture.”

Roofs aren’t the only things that need to be checked out before the cold weather, Miramontes said.

“There’s so much a homeowner can do to prepare for the winter,” he said. “You know it’s coming. You wind up your hoses; you put the little plugs in the foundation. But you don’t think about … your windows. Are they still good? (People) waste so much energy every year, and maybe they don’t know about (the leak). It’s behind a curtain or something. But we can tell you that if you have a metal frame on your window, it’s too old, or if it has one (pane) instead of two.”

The cost of waiting is greater than getting the problem taken care of quickly, Miramontes stressed.

“Our job is to educate homeowners,” he said. “The longer you wait, the more you’re going to pay. (Either) you’re going to do it in beautiful weather, or we’re going to do it out there in the winter (weighting down) tarps with bags of sand. Are you going to move out to stay in a motel because your roof caved in? These are all things that can happen when you wait too long.”