Re-Roofing Your Home
Inspect your attic space before you start your residential re-roofing project.
Replace wood deck sheathing that is rotted or water damaged, analyze attic air exchange, and install attic air vents to be sure your attic is ventilating properly. Check for heat loss at the vapour barrier, be sure your insulation is doing the job, and replace plumbing boots, roof flashing, etc. as required while you are at it.
When replacing your residential sloped roof, it is critical to inspect your attic space first.
If you re-roof your home without inspecting the attic for roof rot, water damage, vapour barrier issues, heat loss to the attic, and proper air intake/exhaust, you are risking have to re-roof again in half the time or worse.
If this occurs, what was the real cost of your new roofing shingles?
Proper ventilation in your attic, building envelope heat loss, proper insulating, and other components of professional shingle re-roofing standards and procedures all play important factors in the process of a shingle roof replacement, and it greatly affects the length of time your new shingles will last.
The best roof shingles are shingles that are on the best roof system.
You can have the best shingles in the world and they will prematurely fail if your roofing system is deficient.
If you install a new shingle roof, and you do not check the attic space, you are really re-roofing shingles (or any other roofing material) with a lot of risk to your newly shingled system. Not to mention, most people decide to re-roof their home due to the fact that something is not right with their roof to begin with. We heard statements such as:
- “The roof is leaking.”
- “The roof is ice damming, and now snow or water backup is causing roof leaks.”
- “The roof valleys are leaking.”
- “Our shingles are just no good and they need to be replaced.”
The point is, there are many reasons roof shingles do not last as long as they should.
For example, if you have a vapor barrier issue (warm air from the inside of your home is entering the attic space) and the warm air entering your attic space is then causing ice damming on your roof, the ice damming then causes leaks (the ice or snow on the roof melts and freezes and melts and backs up under the shingles and then leaks into the attic, all because the underside of the roof sheathing is too warm due to heat loss into the attic). Moisture then causes roof rot to the sheathing which isn’t healthy. The ice backup on the roof damages the shingles and roof underlay, the moisture destroys your insulation, and the water leaking into your home can do all sorts of damage.
Before you re-roof your home and pay the cost for new shingles, you want to know if heat loss into your attic is occurring or your roof sheathing is rotten. If you do not do this before the new shingles are installed, you risk investing in new roofing and the roof rot not being uncovered and replaced, and the warm air coming in to your attic that now causes roof ice damming the following year and perhaps the roofers didn’t install ice and water properly or at all or metal to the roof valleys under the shingles or a host of other possibilities and now you have a brand new shingled roof that cost you an arm and a leg that is leaking with roof rot on the roof sheathing and you need another new roof! You see the possible problems? (Talk about a run on sentence!).
Ice and Water Membrane to Back and Sides of Roof Openings, Wall, StepFrom the same example, let’s say you do not do an assessment of the air ventilation and now you have a new shingle roof, AND your attic air intake is plugged at the soffits by insulation. On top of that, your roof vent exhaust isn’t working properly because you only have four duro-flo air vents at the ridge for a 2100 sq. ft. home/attic space. You’ve had leaking in your home due to condensation in the past and your roof system can’t breathe and your old shingles deteriorated prematurely with your last roof. By now you must be thinking “My roof or shingles only lasted 12 years, and the limited shingle warranty was for 30 years! What the heck?).
Well, news is that your new roof shingles will only last 12 years. Your new limited lifetime warranty on your shingles won’t cover the costs because your roof ventilation ratio is not right, your intake air is compromised because there is insulation covering the intake vents at the soffits, and the exhaust attic ridge vents can’t work properly either…. not to mention that your house is 80 years old and the vapour barrier is compromised and is letting warm air into your attic space, etc. etc. etc. Replacing shingles after having new shingles put on only 10 years earlier is not where you want to be (especially when the wife finds out that it wasn’t the roof shingles fault!). Anyway, sorry I am off track…
Roof sheathing needs to be replaced if it is rotting (which is also a health risk) or has excessive water damage from ice damming back up – this is a Standard Specification in the Toronto Roofer Shingle Re Roofing Cost and our shingle re roofing prices include up 100sq ft of roof sheathing replacement. Air ventilation calculations are required and an analysis of your attic ventilation is completed free of charge, air vents are included in the new price of your shingles, inspection of the insulation and inspection of your vapour barrier is also included in the cost of your new shingles. Insulation replacement and vapour barrier replacement is not included in the price of your new shingles but the inspection is included and is complimentary.