My next door -- townhouse -- neighbor and I had our roofs replaced by the same guy at the same time, about 6 years ago.
She called a guy to clean her gutters and he said he found that the black rubber "grommets" (my word) around the plumbing vents on her house and mine were deteriorating. These are the things that have a metal cone, with an angled flange at the bottom. The whole thing is pushed down the pipe that vents the sinks and toilets, etc. and then shingles are laid over the flange.
Do they make these things so cheaply that they could deteriorate seriously in only 6 years?
Like most things, they make cheap ones and good ones. I remember on one of the TV shows, they showed repair kits for them, but replacement is the proper cure. Most people just keep dabbing roofing cement on them, but that looks like crap (if you can see them from the ground), and you never know when it is gonna start leaking again.
Hope you kept a couple spare bundles of shingles, or you have a common enough shingle style that they can be matched. If the existing shingles are still in good shape, sometimes you can get away with reusing them, but it is best to have spares before you start prying up the old ones to switch out the vent stack cap.
Yes and that is assuming they were actually replaced.
If you plan to stay there, do yourself a big favor, bite the bullet and replace that crap with a real lead variety. It will last through several roof changes if handled carefully each time.
This thread nicely answers at least some of the questions I posed on the thread I started a few days ago.
Yes, as I suspected, those cheap rubber sleeves aren't worth much, in the long run. That's why they're cheap.
Actually, the ones that Lowes sells are all black rubber. No metal parts. The rubber seals around the vent pipe, and it's th erubber that you nail down under the shingles.
But be careful about the lead sleeves. It is well known that rodents (squirrels and the like) do like to gnaw on them, and where they gnaw, which is right up at the vent pipe where they fold over to keep rain out, is one of the worst places to have holes. Yes, the lead sleeves will last forever if it's just about weather. But it's not.
Neither of us can see it from the grround. This seems like a substantial roofing company, at least based on their webpage, fwiw.
I reread her email, and she wrote me that her vent pipe "boots" were leaking. Mine haven't but they can't be far behind.
I outweighed the guy's ladder and it was raining, so I was scared to go on the roof**. He had invited me up, but I only got half way. So he took pictures. He also said my ridge vent was dislodged, but he would fix all this for me. How much? Lunch, he said. There were two of them so I promised him 30 dollars. Then I began thinking< The strange thing is that it shows a 12" square patch of roof next to the pipe that isn't shingled, and my roof doesn't have that.
So I rushed to take my 6' ladder upstairs and get into the attic before he had time to fix anything. I was almost up when I heard a little pounding, but coudln't tell if he was on my roof or my neighbors. When I got up there, I couldnt' see anything wrong with the ridge vent. Looked at the whole thing. I'm thinking, maybe he keeps those two pictures in his phone and shows the same pictures to lots of people!!!
OTOH, 30 dollars is not much money, OT3H, maybe he did almost nothing. OT4H, my neighbor said specifically that her boots were leaking, so how far behind can mine be. I also sort of thought she knew these guys, just because her brother was friends with the general repair guy who was here a year ago.
The old boots were mostly metal with a rubber thing at the top. He didn't put new boots on, just another rubber thing on top of what's there, and he said he woudl caulk it. Then a second one on each pipe. I'm at 245 now when I shoudl weight 160, so maybe I can lose enough weight by spring to go up there. My friend has a ladder I can use.
No. I forgot. I was depressed at the time, but it still amazes me that I forgot. One can't see the back half of the house's roof from the ground, but the front half can be seen. If it comes to that, I'll have to use shingles that don't match. Ugh. I don't think I even got a wrapper so I don't know what company or anything else about them. All I can say is that I was depressed.
He didn't want to replace the vent stack cap. He had rubber "washers", about 6 inches in diameter, that did look like the top of the vent stack cap, and he was going to put one on and then caulk it. Then he decided to use 2 on each cap.
** I asked the guy about his going on the roof when it was wet, and he shurgged. Then he told me he knew a guy who 5 years ago fell off a wet roof, 2 stories Ithink he said, and broke his back. Golly.
And this guy seemed genuinely disgussted that the guy who did the roof hadn't spent "6 dollars" each for the vent boots.
OTOH, I read about this on the web and it seems rodents eat holes in them, so maybe it's not about how much money one spends. Or maybe only the cheap ones are tasty to squirrles. OT3H, I've never seen a squirrrel on anyone's roof. OT4H, I can see a few roofs but they are in the ceneter of the n'hod, awy from the trees. The ones by the trees I can only see when I'm on the roof!
Good poiunt. Also from you, Jame. Although I just realized that I did go up on the roof when it was 99% done and I think I saw shiny new vent pipe cones. If they were old and non-shiny, I would have noticed,, I think, even though I was depressed.
There was a rain collar missing from some of the chimneys, including one of mine. He didn't have one and I called all over to find one, once I remembered. It was a one day job but because of rain every day, it took him 3 or 4 days elapsed time. I could only find a universal, adjustable lentggh column, and it had to have some of the metal trimmed off. For some reason I wanted to do that and put it on myself, so I did. It rained a lot, but at the second part of each day. When I went on the roof it was dry. Plus I weighed 30 pounds less.
I just saw pictures of those, but I'll go to Lowes to look at them.
I rarely see squirrels, maybe one every few years. but someone ate my only peach. I forgot about it and I'm sure it fell off the tree, and now there is no trace. I bought a fruit cocktail tree two yeas ago, but all the branches diied except one. I'm going to buy another and plant it in a better spot. It might have been 15 dollars and it looks like thin stick, with a traditional cloth mop on the end (the roots.) I've never seen them in the store, only by mail.
Squirrels on roofs? All the time in Texas, with trees nearby. Raccoons too, occasionally, looking a bit lost. Never a possum, a coyote, a deer. or a turtle.
But if you don't have squirrels around, you're good to go with a lead liner it would seem. Actually, if you don't have overhanging trees, you're especially good to go with lead.
My lot is only 30 feet wide, counting the house, and there are plenty of tall leafy trees just to the left of the lot, yet in 25 years, I've only seen one or two leaves in my gutters, total. But I saw the roofing guy a couple days ago pull handfulls of leaf semi-sludge out of my neiigbor's gutter, and he said I had it too. 25 years ended 3 years ago,probably the last t looked. I wonder what changed.
Haven't learned anything more about the thread since last I posted.
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