Replacing your roof is an essential part of maintaining your home. A damaged or improperly maintained roof can cause thousands of dollars in damage to other parts of the home. Roof repairs only go so far, and eventually, it will be time to replace your roof entirely. Replacing your roof can seem like a daunting task for the first time homeowner. Choosing between hundreds of professional roofing contractors can be confusing. Thankfully, the project of getting a new roof is not too complicated, and it helps to know what to expect.

Roof Replacement Process

Here at 4 Weather Insulation & Roofing, we’ve nailed down a re-roofing process that’s guaranteed to give you the best roof for your home or business. Whether we’re replacing a shingle, slate or metal roof, surface preparation is always the same.

1. Property Protection

Our first job is to assure that your entire property is fully protected while roofing replacement is underway.  This includes siding, walls, plants, bushes, etc. We use tarps and protection plywood.

2. Removal of Old Roofing Material

All old shingles have to be completely removed in order to inspect wood decking.

3. Roofing Inspection

Every roof replacement project begins with a thorough roofing inspection of the wood decking. Any soft, wet or rotted wood needs to be replaced to create a solid base for your roofing structure. This is very important because only when you have a solid base for your roofing structure your shingles will stay intact.

Also, wood sheeting needs to be inspected to make sure that it is attached to the roof rafters the right way. Unfortunately, many roofing contractors do not check for missing nails during the removal old roofing material. They install new shingles without re-nailing the old wood decking. After the new shingles are installed you might be impressed at the sight of the whole structure, but after several weeks you will see many bumps on your roof.

4. Preparing The Roof Surface For Shingles

Drip Edge Installation – After wood decking is prepared we install drip edge at all edges of the roof. Drip edge is a piece of metal bend at 90 degrees to prevent rain from getting underneath roofing material on all edges.

Ice and water shield installation – Next step is installing “ice and water shield” which is a special type of roofing underlayment. Ice and water shield sticks to the wood decking which prevents any water leaks. It must be installed at the bottom of the roof and at all roof penetrations (chimneys, pipe flanges, roof connections, etc.).

5. Ice & Water Shield Installation

Roofing felt installation – After ice and water shield is applied, the rest of the roof needs to be cover with roofing felt. Roofing felt prevents shingles from sticking to the wood.

6. New Roofing Material Installation

After the above steps are completed and the base is ready, we start laying out the new roofing material, working from the bottom up, followed by a step and/or counter flashing, ridge vents, and ridge capping installation, as needed.

7. Site Cleanup

We clean job site daily. We believe that we have to leave our job site cleaner than it had been before we came in.

8. Final inspection

Each roof replacement project includes a meticulously performed, post-roofing inspection. We want to make sure that your roof replacement is done correctly and that it meets with your complete satisfaction.