Author Topic: Time for a New Roof  (Read 804 times)

Offline stokester

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Time for a New Roof
« on: March 17, 2023, 09:42:00 AM »
About a month ago my wife and I were in the attic above my attached garage and noticed a wet spot on the roof sheathing.  This led to a closer inspection and discovery of a couple of other questionable areas.

My wife works for a small local guttering company as the office manager/scheduler/bookkeeper so she and the company owner have insight on local companies and their quality of work.  This led to an inspection by a roofing company owner who showed me exactly what was happening with my 20 year-old architectural shingled roof.  This roof was installed after damage from hurricane Isabel so it was about 20 years old.  He explained that in the early days of architectural shingles that many companies installed them just like the flat three-tab. That and because there were many fly-by-night installers working as subcontractors after a natural disaster so the quality of installation was not always the best.

The issue is that some of the nails are not covered and are exposed to rain running down the roof if the shingle is not staggered properly and the nails eventually rust and leave holes in the shingle and roofing.

I saved a rusted nail to compare with one that was covered, there were many like the rusted one pictured.  There may be experts on this forum who can comment on this and add to my experience.
Nick
Yorktown, VA

Offline fatfillup

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2023, 10:50:07 AM »
No expert here but darn that is one rusty nail

When are they doing the rooF?

Offline ScoutDriver

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2023, 11:03:05 AM »
For the past 10 or 15 years around here, steel roofs have gotten much more common.  We did our roof with steel a few years back and wouldn't go back to shingles.

Scott

Offline stokester

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2023, 02:29:09 PM »
Steel roof would be nice but was beyond our budget.

Roof was installed yesterday, started at 0730 and finished up at about 1700.  Good crew, quality work.
Nick
Yorktown, VA

Offline ScoutDriver

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2023, 04:33:41 PM »
Beautiful home, stokester!

Scott

Offline stokester

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2023, 04:48:56 PM »
Beautiful home, stokester!

Scott

Thanks, looking better now.
Nick
Yorktown, VA

Offline goodfellow

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2023, 06:16:15 PM »
Very nice house Nick. I don't know anything about roofs, but sure know a few friends/old neighbors that had gotten a bad deal by their roofing contractors. I dread the day when its our turn.

Offline slip knot

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2023, 06:41:31 PM »
Nice place you got.

I did some roofing back in high school to help pay for my alcohol habit. One of the guys I worked with back then has his own roofing company now. He does all my roofing work.

Those hurricane roofers are all shysters. They know that they will never be back in the area again so they cut every corner they can. But people are usually desperate to get their lives back together so they jump at the first roofer that has an opening.

Offline stokester

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2023, 06:48:34 PM »
Very nice house Nick. I don't know anything about roofs, but sure know a few friends/old neighbors that had gotten a bad deal by their roofing contractors. I dread the day when its our turn.

As mentioned, I have the advantage of my wife dialed into the local contractors.

My experience is to search out someone who is local and has some history.  If they don't do well locally they will not last.  The guttering company my wife works for is a cash or check business and requires a surcharge for a CC payment.  The heavily advertised gutters/gutter guard and roofing companies will also offer financing which is their draw for many that require that service.  If you are ready to pay cash or write out a check the local, small business is the way to go for price and quality.

I based my contract on personal recommendation and not on price as there are many who are not licensed and just pick up workers at the local day-job location.  There are many who will undercut price but I feel the quality of the work will suffer.

My reason for this topic was to inform others who have had architectural roofs installed a decade or more ago that there were lots of them installed incorrectly according to my contractor.  It appears to be so as I saw my neighbor have to replace part of theirs on the backside of the house because of a leak.
Nick
Yorktown, VA

Offline slip knot

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2023, 08:15:02 PM »
Living along the Gulf coast we have a wind rating requirement for roofing. The state will send out an inspector to ok the installation. A lot of roofs failed to pass after Hurricane Harvey. That weeded out a lot of the shysters but I know several folks who just paid cash and never had it inspected. The insurance companies wouldn't cut a check without a passing windstorm report.

Offline highland512

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #10 on: March 20, 2023, 01:44:32 PM »
We replaced our roof last year. Where I live it is not unusual to see sustained winds at 30 for hours, I was tired of climbing onto the roof to replace shingles in below 0 wind chills. After a wind storm last spring we finally lost enough to justify a call to the insurance. At the time (April '22) the cost difference between shingles and steel on my house was only $2,750. We now have a very nice looking hidden fastener steel roof and I sleep soundly while the winds ripping.

Offline walrus

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #11 on: March 26, 2023, 06:34:37 AM »
Exposed nails are a bad thing no matter what the shingle type is. Not sure there is any roof nstallation where you would see nails? Except the last shingle on a cap? and then dabs of tar should cover the head of the nail

Offline bonneyman

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Re: Time for a New Roof
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2023, 11:14:55 AM »
Nice home, indeed!

I thought that the last time I worked on a "shingle job" the contractor used stainless steel nails? Just for that reason - reduced rust and corrosion. Then again we have this Spanish tile roofing that's so popular, and those nails have to be quite hefty to hold the weight of those things.

I'm glad I have a flat roof that just needs recoating with the white stuff every few years.