Roofing products to recommend or avoid?

[Kestas]

Originally Posted By: user52165
Originally Posted By: Kestas
... The job included removing three layers and redecking the 41 year old house, plus a lot of other stuff...

41 year old house already had 3 layers??

I scratched my head on that one. When I bought the house, I found the attic was hardly ventilated at all. The shingles may have overheated and even suffered from thermal cycling. All three layers were black. I picked a light color to reduce stress from thermal cycling.

Keep in mind warranty typically applies to shingles applied to a complete tear-off.

 

[supton]

Well,if one layer of shingles is supposed to stop water, and if that does not work, then more is better, right?

Three layers seems like a lot. I wonder how much one saves by not stripping. Saves a dollar today and spends two tomorrow.

 

[Kestas]

I basically had to do the roofing job because the first two layers were crumbling and allowing the eaves to rot. The rot was allowing squirrels to take residence in my attic. The top layer was fine.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Originally Posted By: sciphi
My wife is scared that I'll fall, so she's not budging on hiring somebody to re-roof the house. The discussion was had multiple times, and always the same result. No DIY on this one.


I'm with your wife on this one. I don't know about your situation, but our household is a single income household, and I have no business being up on a roof, possibly getting hurt, and jeopardizing our single income source. I don't even climb too high on ladders much -- I just don't feel that the reward is worth the risk.

And that's just the financial piece. Even if finances were completely covered either way -- I'm not going to risk my health and well-being (and ability to drive, etc) to save a few thousand dollars on a roof. I know someone who is paralyzed because he fell off a ladder. He can't drive; he can't even walk through a park on a nice day.

It does happen.


It's a lot more common that you think. I've heard of several people falling off ladders. They survived but walked with a limp afterwards. I was actually on a jury case where a woman fell off a ladder cleaning her bathroom, wasn't that high a ladder, but she cracked a rib and later that rib punctured her aorta and she bled to death.

Also most fire codes don't allow you to have more than two layers of shingles.

 

[firemachine69]

Um, safety harness on the roof, zoom-boom when getting high?

 

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: sciphi
GAF Timberline seems to be the go-to product around here. The quotes I've gotten have been for GAF products. The contractors want to do tear-offs to put down ice and water shield so they don't have come-backs in winters down the line. That is fine with me.

My roof has a 5/12 pitch. It's also a single story. Makes a big difference for a DIY'er. I rigged scaffolding to work on fascia and install first courses. Much safer than ladders.

In your neck of the woods, you'd want I&WS on the lower edge, particularly if you have problems with ice dams. Some might even do the entire roof. Seems expensive and overkill to me, but we don't have your weather down here, so I don't know. I used I&WS, here called 'sticky-back' underneath my two short valleys to waterproof them, then used metal in the valleys instead of shingles as leaves, twigs & oak tassles slide off the metal easier (this time of year).

 

[Kestas]

Good point on the valleys. I regret having knitted shingles at the valleys where leaf litter is an issue. Open valleys lined with metal are best, and especially critical for pine needles.

 

[sleddriver]

Yep! One of my neighbors has a multiple-valley hip roof and they live underneath a canopy of oaks. Right now we're getting leaved, tassled and everything colored yellow from the pollen. They have a 20' valley with leaves 6" thick or so stuck in it.

Most roofers (save for the good ones) don't want to do metal valleys due to the cost + time it takes. Plus you have to glue/tar the shingles to the metal as there should be no holes in it at all.

 

[Al]

Speaking of roofs...Roof Reviver is the only product that removes that black mold from older shingle roofs.

http://roofreviver.com/

 

[Kestas]

A strip of zinc laid on top, parallel to the peak would accomplish the same thing, and last longer.

 

[sleddriver]

10-12ga bare copper wire will also work.

 

[Delta]

I've always used GAF products. It wasn't the fact that I sold them for 8 years at my previous job, but they stood for their products. There was a manufacturing issue with the Timberline 30 products several years ago, but that's all water under the bridge. Don't go with the cheaper line either; they make a Lifetime that is not overly expensive that is a great product. We did sell IKO as well, and it seemed like an excellent product, but I did not see enough to do a personal recommendation.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Kestas
A strip of zinc laid on top, parallel to the peak would accomplish the same thing, and last longer.

It won't remove heavy mold already there.

 

[sciphi]

The contractor I'd prefer to do the job recommended open valleys, so I'm going to hew to that recommendation. We live in a fairly open area, but we do get a lot of snow trapped in the valleys.