Roofing Advice Page
(a must read)

 Updated 11 / 2012

What kind of roofing problem issues am I likely to encounter?

Flat roofs are very impractical here in the NW especially, where we get a great deal of rain fall and debris from near by trees that grow so well with all this rain we get each year. Flat roofs are always a problem for several reasons and do not last long. You are lucky to get more than 10 years out of it without major service. One problem is they must be installed perfectly to seal out the rain water. They often will have rain water puddle on the roof and collect debris in these puddles, which will turn into thick heavy mud. The sole purpose of the sand on the composite asphalt roofing shingles it to shade the petroleum material below from the harmful UV rays of the Sun.

Very few flat roofing materials are made with some sort of rock shade. Slick talking sales-people will try to sell you a PVC blanket to cover the roof with, but don't be fooled to believe it will not suffer the same sort of damage from the Sun, or worst yet; wind damage from the lack of fasteners.

Moss is also a common problem for any type of roofing material.  The easiest and quickest solution for this is to wash it off with a pressure washer. Although, this often does more damage to the roof than the moss. You will be hard-pressed to find a contractor to spend the time and effort to clean it off safely.  Read over our Moss Treatment and Control web page for more details and better solutions. Cleaning those roofs with a pressure washer blasts off a large percentage of the sand or paint, and then the sun rays will rip the roofing to shreds in the next few years.

I designed a flat roofing process that is better than any other concept I have seen, but it is not geared to be installed by the average dim-witted Roofer. Most any successful roofing product has to be simple enough to be installed by the stupidest Roofers out there. You can contact me for more details about this concept for flat roofing pictured here.

Asphalt Composite Roofing:

I would have to say that composite roofing is the best value if installed correctly and they use a rust-free flashing that will last as long as the shingles, which is a huge problem. The down side is how this is considered hazardous waste and polluting our landfills by the thousands of tons each year locally.

(a) It seems to at least go it's promised life span, as long a good rust free flashing is used. A simple magnet test can reveal what type of flashing they are about to use. Only steel will attract a magnet from it's iron content. You must be there to inspect it and insist they do not use any steel parts including the nails that hold the shingles on. You cannot trust what their Sale Rep says. You may even have to order the aluminum flashing yourself from a local sheet metal shop for the Roofer to use, and make sure they use it. They may substitute steel flashing, and scrap your aluminum for a profit.

(b) It remanins much safer to stand on decades later to access the roof for cleaning or other service that will be needed on the roof.

(c) The cost is more reasonable than most all the other roofing products.

(d) Improper flashing is the most common failure of roofs. Why pay more for more expensive roofing when there is no difference in how it is flashed? It is better to pay more to insist on rust free sheet metal flashing and have it flashed properly than buying a more expensive roofing product like tile. Otherwise you are just burning thousands of $ and contributing to more hazardous landfill.

(e) Composite roofing is less prone to damage from hail storms or workers accessing the roof.

(f) Snow loads are less apt to slide off than other roofing products, which can destroy gutters, cars, landscaping, or other property, and people. Snow loads can present a grave risk to people or animals trapped under it's fall. They have snow guards, but they are more problematic than they help. Snow gards added means there will be more holes punctured through your roofing, they trap debris on the roof, which causes more moss, they are unsightly, and pose a hazard for workers needing to access your roof for servicing.

Pabco makes a shingle pattern in a 35 to 40 year composite shingle. It is in a diamond pattern, so it looks attractive, but most of all it leaves no traps for small debris to be caught in, which causes much of the moss growth issue.  I do not hold much stock in warranties, but the better life roofing tends to be thicker, so it is more resistant to high wind damage.

Cedar Wood Shake Roofing:

They gave up using wood shakes as the actual protecting roof cover over half a century back for good reasons. Think of a shake covered gazebo at one of the parks, where you can see daylight through the roof in hundreds of spots, so you know it will leak something terrible when it rains. Yet, for some strange reason it had made a huge fashion comeback by using cheap fragile tar paper as the actual protection to keep out the rain water. These modern wood shakes are nothing more than the shade cover for the asphalt saturated paper. This is not a joke. I highly advise against the best quality wood shake roofing for numerous reasons, besides how dangerous they are for us workers to be up there on your roof:

(a) Far Too Expensive: cost way too much for the short time span they actually last.

(b) Poor Installation: Due to the irregularity of the material, it is very sloppily installed, leaving many errors that will allow water under this exterior layer and cause leak, let alone in a high wind situations. Faulty new shakes are often not discarded.

(c) Serious Moss Problems: They grow mildew and moss worse than most any other roofing, making them terribly dangerous to access the roof for any cleaning or maintenance, so the workers have to wear special shoes with steel spikes on the bottom (no joke), which will tear up your wood roof and leave unsightly irregular pock marks on the shakes from their foot prints.

(d) Flashing Problems: It is very rare that they flash it right, let alone use rust free sheet metal.  The flashing they use in over 90% of the roofing projects is cheap painted steel, which will rust through within a couple decades, so the 40 year warranty for the shakes is completely irrelevant.

(e) High Maintenance: costing around $1k to $2k a year to properly clean and treated with chemicals and fire retardant to keep it under warranty, so most Home-owners don't bother to have it treated, since the cost out weighs the cost of re-roofing in half the time, so the shakes are typically lasting only 20 years at best. Many shakes will need replace well before whole roofing is needed, yet near impossible to replace individual shakes that are damaged, and impossible to replace them with hidden fasteners.

(f) Poor Ridge Cap Design: roof ridge and hips are only stapled together with these irregular pieces.  They are connected with exposed steel staples and are not done well at that.  They are prone to rust and fall apart. Even in the best situations, they do not seal the roof along these top edges. A ridge cap metal would be far better, but can look odd.

(g) Fire Hazard: This type of roofing can be treated with a chemical fire retardant, but there again it is very expensive to have it retreated to maintain it's resistance to even small cinders lighting on the roof, so it remains one of the most flammable roofs known.

(h) Fragile: prone to these shakes crack apart at the supporting nail or staple. Will be greatly damaged underfoot from workers wearing cleated shoes, and not being told which shakes need replaced when they're done. Broken branches hitting the roof. Just normal weather damage with whole pieces becoming dislodged from the roof. They also have been known to be completely decimated by hail storms, resulting in a full replacement. I happen sit on a jury case involving a huge law suit regarding damaged cedar roofing in Kansas and Texas from a freak hail storm back in 1996, so don't think it cannot happen where you live.

(i) Frustrating: you will become very frustrated by the frequent gutter failure this roofing causes; with the chunks of wood breaking off and landing in your gutters. Then those chunks float over to the outlet and plug up your gutters quite often.

If that is not enough reasons:

(j) Down Right Ugly!: Some people think it looks charming, and whole neighborhoods require this type of roofing, but I think if we try to see it for what it is we will see how it actually looks terrible! (The Emperor is really naked, isn't he?) You have smooth planed boards painted for your siding or some imitation of wood siding, so why then would you consider having a rough split wood shake roof that makes your house look like an old shack or barn?  Charming? Really? That makes no sense.  If you think about it logically it's like a beautiful woman in an evening gown wearing an old tattered straw hat. If that was not bad enough; it then turns an ugly gray from the Sun's bleaching UV rays within just a few years, unless you pay thousands of $ to have the roof treated frequently, which rarely winds up happening, since 20 years of that and you would have paid enough to buy a new roof or 2. If you fully understood the many disadvantages I've experience accessing these roofs you would also see them as the most hideous option one could consider.

(a) Aesthetics: other than copper, a shiny painted metal roof may look nice and modern on businesses structures that wants to draw attention, but they look absolutely atrocious on most any residential house. Far from casual or inconspicuous looking.  They are great if you happen to suffer from a lack of attention disorder, but in that case I would highly recommend therapy that should be more helpful in the long term.

(b) Noisy, Noisy, Noisy: be it from the Sun coming out between the clouds, causing sudden expansion or contraction that is different than the wood structure underneath, making them pop and creak. 
Rain: perhaps the 3x amplified sound of the rain or Critters scampering across may seem charming at times, but when it comes to Hail; you will not be able to hear the TV at a normal volume or speak to each other without shouting.  There is also the occasional Tree Branch, Acorns, and Pine Cones that fall; hitting the roof, which can be down right scary and often so loud it will jar you out of a deep sleep.

(c) Rain and Snow: rain will shoot so fast down the roof panels that it will often over shoot the gutters. Especially at the valleys. But more importantly thick icy snow loads will slide off even on low slope metal roofs and often cause a great deal of damage to the gutters and other valuables like cars, property, landscaping, animals, and people.  See our Sheet Metal Roofs & Snow Page for more details and photos.

(d) Rust: I have seen in this area of the country that not only most metal roofing are made of cheap pre-painted steel in order to compete with other roofing products, but it accounts for well over 90%, since most people are not aware of the dramatic difference in sheet metals like aluminum or copper.  The manufacturers are making unrealistic claims of a 50 year pain finish, which is simply not holding up more than a decade or so. It is a fact that cars have a far better paint finish. Even when you have your car waxed on a regular basis you still need to have it re-painted within a couple decades?  Are you going to pay someone to clean and wax your roof every 6 months?  Of course not!  How much would that cost? To strip the worn paint down, prime, and a new coat of paint would cost more than a full replacement with new tile roofing.  I have witnessed lots of evidence of metal roofs beginning to rust in less than a decades and be nearly paint free within 3 decades.  Of course covered with rust and suffering many holes through that thin steel sheet metal.

Once rust begins to form it is too late to just have it re-painted.  The paint may stick to the rust, but the rust would just flake off the remaining steel.  It would have to be carefully sanded down, which is very costly, and would cause a penetration of the thin sheet metal.  The roll forming machines that make these roof panels are known to crack the paint before this roofing panels are even installed on the roof.  This allows for the beginning a cancerous rust to form right from day one. They also get scratched up from the installers and other workers who will need to service the roof from time to time, like cleaning your gutters. It is a stress you are not going to enjoy worrying about the paint getting scratched up.

(e) Function: roofers do not seem to know how to flash and seal a roof properly, and will not even take the time to bend a drip edge along the bottom edge, causing the rain water to trickle back under the roof, dribbling behind the gutters causing dry-rot, or shooting over the gutter in a heavy down pour.

(f) Stability: metal roofs have been commonly known to not be fastened down well enough, and have ripped right off  houses in high winds.  Which has caused a lot of damage and death from these flying blades of metal, besides the damage inside your house you'll suffer before it can be repaired.

(g) Leaks: these need an expensive high temp Water & Ice Shield underlayment put on before any metal goes on your roof, yet this is rarely done. They are very hard to flash properly around the many obstacles found on most any roof, and high winds will easily blow rain water up in these areas causing damage inside your house. Especially around chimneys, sky-lights, roof-vents, pipe-vents, and dormers.  They will trap a lot of debris on the roof above and around these obstacles and especially in the valleys, which will decompose and hold moisture against this metal and accelerate the rust issue listed above.

(h) Dangerous: they are very dangerous to access for servicing, since they mildew in short order and become very slick when even lightly damp from morning dew. They become slick like a water slide. Wood shakes also moss-up like this and become very slick, but at least we can wear special cleated boots.  There are no special shoes to make metal roofs safe without scratching up the paint surface.

(i) Expensive: even if they did last as long as they claim, they are still over priced. Clearly with all the disadvantages of metal roofs listed above they are not only a very bad choice even if they were half the cost, so they are a huge rip-off at what they normally cost!

Enough said?

Real & Imitation Tiles made of Clay, Fiber/Concrete Mix, Painted Steel, Plastic, & Slate:

These can look very snappy on a house, but there is a huge difference of lasting quality between these materials. Clay and slate will last a good long while if done right with rust free flashing. But there's the main issue that prevents these from lasting 1/3 as long as the Salesman's claim. Most Roofers will use cheap painted steel flashing, so this type of roofing will only last a couple decades even if it was flashed correctly.

Remember; you can tell if a Salesman is lying by seeing his lips move, so even if he says this will have rust free flashing you will still need to be on-site to test the flashing with a magnet before it goes up on your roof, and then insist they take it back to get aluminum or copper flashing in stead. No matter what delays this would cause you'll need to stand your ground, or you've lost 2/3 the value of this roofing contract and life span of this roof, not to mention all the stress you'll suffer down the road.

Problems:
(a) Very Expensive: tile roofs may look great, but they are very expensive, and rarely found with real stone slate like you would see more in Europe.

(b) Poor Flashing: It is clear flashing is the #1 cause of roof failure, but even though you paid through the nose for a tile roof; in most cases they are still not flashed any better than any other cheaper types of roofing, so it fails just as soon (no joke). These 80 year roofs are only lasting a couple decades.  You will not likely know where the leak is coming from, so another roofing contractor will tell you the whole roof needs replaced only because he wants to sell you over 10 times the cost of what the roof actually needs to repair it.

(c) Not Installed Right: finding good craftsman to properly install a tile roof is rare, let alone a slate roof. Later service is then just as hard to find, if not harder, since Roofers do not want to be bothered with small repair projects that are not as profitable.

(d) Fragile: most any roof tile are fragile. Some more than others. Making it very costly and stressful to have any service or cleaning done. The concrete and concrete composite tiles are very fragile, no matter what lies the sales-person may claim.  The composite tiles are also prone to more damage from exposure to the elements. Metal tiles are hollow and impossible to walk on, so this will be a huge problem down the road. Those with plastic in them will degrade significantly within a decade. Fallen tree branches can be very destructive, and the leaks will cause a good deal of costly internal damage before you may realize what happened.

(e) Not Water Tight: Clay is actually rather porous, unless they are made with a kilned glazing (like dish ware), but is that much more costly, there for is very rare to see. Also, they are loose fitting and do not overlap each other very much, so strong winds can blow rain water up under the tiles and caused water damage. For this reason an expensive Water & Ice Shield underlayment is needed, yet rarely done.

(f) Weight: They are very heavy, and could cause structural damage to the roof structure if not framed well enough. Especially under thick snow loads.

(g) Moss: They grow moss and mildew more than composite roofing, clogging up the gutter each year and damaging the tiles, becoming very unsightly.

Problem:
There is nothing much to say on this subject, since you would be hard pressed to find a thatch roofing craftsman here in the States. Not to mention how your neighbors would probably have issue with it.

Removal of the Old Roofing

Asphalt Saturated Roofing Felt

To recap, You must insist on:

(a) A full tear-off of all the layers of old roofing shingles to be able to inspect the roof deck and relpace any that have been compromised showing dark stains. Especially if there is a layer of wood shingles, or the thickness of the old roofing will not allow the nails to be able to grip into the roof deck below, which should be more solid than aged shingles.

(b) If a new roof decking is needed insist on thicker than code CDX exterior grade plywood.

(c) Real 30# roofing felt, or a better yet a high temp Water and Ice Shield under-layment. It should be thick like leather.

(d) Only aluminum, high grade stainless steel, or copper roof vents and flashing (no steel or plastic), lead pipe vent sleeve flashing w/matching lead caps. You will need to be there on-site to inspect with a magnet before these flashing parts go on your roof. Only steel will attract a magnet and will need to be taken back.

(e) Demand that the chimney and dormer flashing be replaced. Clearly written in the contract and inspected to verify it was properly flashed (or they won't!).
See: http://copper-by-design.com/cc/cf.htm for details.

(f) Better than standard 25-year roofing material are thicker shingles for better wind resistance.

(g) Hand nailed with aluminum or stainless steel nails that are at least 1.5" long (if you can find someone who is willing to do this). Or at least a coil nail gun with 1.5" long stainless steel nails.

(h) More nails per shingle than the minimum code requirement: at least 6 per shingle on low slope roofs, and 8 per shingle on roofs 10/12 pitch or above.

(i) Have the new roof treated with moss control powder and or a copper ridge cap  (no zinc metal strips)

Below is a photo of our
Better Business Bureau's
NW Business Integrity Award
for the year 1998

I was also a 1997 finalist for this same award. See our referral web page to see how I managed to be honored with this special award