Roof

[Cypress]

When I bought my house two winters ago, the inspector said it was 1/2 way thru its life span. How do you know it is time for a new roof?

This winter has been exceptionally hard on the roof. The sun exposure is East/West. The West side is showing green along the edges of the shingles near the street side or North side of the house.

The material now is asphalt shingle. I had one minor leak this winter, however, the amount of ice and snow was quite substantial. The leak came through the bathroom addition.

I have a contractor stopping by this afternoon. Of course, he will say I need a new roof. How on earth do I get an objective opinion?

[redfox]

Why do you think the contractor will not be objective? If he does tell you you need a new roof, ask him how he knows. Ask him to specify if he can certify it as sound, and if so, for how long. Then, get two more opinions.

[Gardenarian]

You don't need a new roof unless you are having a lot of leaks or have obvious roof damage (i.e. missing a lot of shingles from all over the roof.)

A minor leak under extreme conditions is not cause for a new roof. I wouldn't even bother to patch it unless it becomes a chronic problem. You really don't need to re-roof unless you have multiple leaks (and often you can get by for quite a while with just patching those.)
You should remove the moss, as it retains moisture and will shorten the life of the shingles.

Did the inspector say what the lifespan of your roof would be? There are 10-year, 20-year, 30-year shingles - you may have many years left.

[redfox]

In our case, our homeowners insurance covered an entire new roof because the old one leaked due to storm damage. The policy stated that if the new one was visually different from the old one & this could be seen from the street, the entire roof got replaced. We ended up with a much beefier new 30 year roof. It was worth a call to an adjuster. I figured that we've paid 12K into homeowners insurance and just got 9K back.

[Yppej]

Are the shingles buckling or do they lay flat?

[Cypress]

Are the shingles buckling or do they lay flat?

The shingles are lying flat. The gutter had a serious ice dam and had started to pull away from the house. One part of the gutter is no longer flat to the house. The East side of my house has no gutter at all. I had one contractor out yesterday who saw some moisture on the roof by looking at the attic. He also talked about concerns with flashing and shingling around my chimney.

The only leak I am aware of is the small one in the bathroom.

I plan to have another quote or two before I commit to any work. I sincerely apprecaite all the responses on this question. I will check my original inspection notes and see what was said.

[bow-tie]

If the shingles are lying flat, and aren't curling along the edges, I would think there is some life left in them. If you can get into the attic to look for wet spots, that might be your best indicator of the shape of your roof. Replacing shingles can be expensive enough, but replacing bad/rotten sheeting can make the expense even worse.

[CathyA]

If you have a leak in your bathroom, it could be because you need to caulk around the vent on the roof. That happened to us.

[Bronxboy]

Ice dams are usually caused by the underside of the roof being too warm and melting the snow too quickly, possibly combined with clogged gutters. Water can back up under perfectly good shingles and leak because of ice dams.

We had roof leaks due to ice dams the first winter in our current house. I insulated the attic and corrected heat leaks from the house, and the ice dams never came back. The roof held on 5 more years until developing leaks in ordinary rains; only then did we replace it.

When you do replace, have ice and water membrane added at the bottom of the roof. PDF File

http://www.graceathome.com/pages/downloads/GIWS-060P.pdf

[rosarugosa]

This thread has kept my interest because I'm under the impression that we're overdue for a new roof, but now I'm starting to wonder. We had our roof replaced with 15-year shingles 25 years ago, but they are lying flat and we have no leaks. Does that mean we should put it off until something manifests itself as not being OK? Or is it better/more proactive to do something before there is a problem?

[Cypress]

Here's another question. As this is my 2nd winter in this little old house. How do I find out when this roof was put on? I have no connection to the previous home owner. It would be interesting to find out.

[CathyA]

I imagine a builder or a roofer could guesstimate the age. Also, you might want to see if there's another roof underneath it. You wouldn't want to put a 3rd roof on top of 2 other roofs, since they're so heavy. Can you get into your attic to see if there's been leakage in the past? or if there's a million nails?

[redfox]

I would never allow leaks into my house for longer than it takes to get things repaired. Once mold gets into a house, it's very hard & very expensive to abate, and bad for one's health. I'm allergic to it too, something I likely developed living in an old leaky rental for 3 years. A solid roof is basic the the health and longevity of a house. Not something to skimp on, IMHO.

[bae]

When we moved into this house 12 years ago, we had a wood shake roof which was about 15 years old, and the house is in a high-fire-danger forested location. About a year after we moved in, we had some shakes blow off, and I had a roofer come out to replace them, and to tell me how much life I had left in them, and give me some estimates for replacing.

He told me that I *could* replace them if I wanted, and gave me some estimates, but that with a little care, I'd get perhaps 10 more years out of them. Two other roofers gave me estimates for replacing it, and told me to take it off immediately, they'd give me "a special price".

Well, after 10 years of having the first roofer maintain it for me instead, I lost about half of it in a huge wind storm.

Guess who I gave the contract to replace it to? Yes, the fellow who had nurtured it along another decade for me, instead of trying to sell me a bill of goods. He even arranged to batch the job up with several others, to save costs on material shipment and rubbish disposal.

Bottom line: get multiple estimates, and try to find someone trustworthy. And who will show up to fix it when it leaks.

[Yppej]

In my area roofers have to pull a permit with the city before doing a job. If that's the case where you are, and if the roofer followed the law, you should be able to find out when the roof was installed. (My parents didn't know this when they did it themselves and a neighbor ratted them out. I made sure when I had my roof replaced to specify in the contract that the roofer was responsible for pulling any permits.)