I have 3 quotes for a tear-off and reshingle of my roof. The roof has one layer of existing shingles. The shingles are selling for $100 a square at Lowes. Roof is 40 square. Estimates work out to $270 to $335 a square. Any sheathing replacement is $50 a sheet. Job will be #15 lb felt, ice dam material on lower 3 ft. Double felt on garage roof, which is low pitch. New ridge vent to be installed along entire peak.
It's in NJ, which is bad enough as far as prices and Im sure Sandy is still a factor in prices. I need to get it done, so waiting isn't an option.
Long time since I did mine but 2nd roof did not require complete tear off and while shingles were in bad shape they covered with a longer warranty textured type shingle which hid any imperfections. I also skipped ridge vent. Probably been 20 years and my roof still looks good.
BTW...It wouldn't make sense for me to share my price since I had gutters, soffits and some vinyl trim work done. All of the estimates that I got (that were worth considering) were to do the entire job. No one quoted me a "per square" price just for the roof.
I think I mentioned a while back about the one contractor that presented a quote that was >1/3 higher than the quotes from other contractors. When I asked why he charged so much, he pulled out pictures of all of his trucks and the buggy lift they just bought. He said "My overhead is higher than a lot of other companies."
My response: "You want me to pay 25% more for a sheet of plywood because you have a fancy truck? Once you nail it down, is that plywood going to perform 25% better than the other guy's plywood? After the job is over, is my roof going to look better or last longer because you used buggy lift instead of a ladder?" He couldn't do much more than mumble something unintelligible.
I didn't even take the estimate out of his hand. He then drove off in his fancy truck.
Regarding using a ice dam product on the entire roof, I found guys arguing both sides of that one. The ones who seemed to have the science behind them, eg a building sciences professor, were generally against it.
The proponents say:
it gives better water protection for the whole roof
Those against say:
it seals the roof, which is great to a point. But sooner or later some water gets in someday and with the barrier, the wood can't breathe from the topside like it can with felt. Moisture can't get out and the wood can rot. Those in favor of using it say the sheathing can still breathe and dry out from the attic side. Those against say, yes, that's true, but it's better if it can breathe from both sides. Those in favor also say that with felt and shingles, the roof can't breathe from the top anyhow. The other side says yes it can......
Bottom line for me is the existing roof lasted 28 years with just felt, no ice dam stuff at all, no leaks, no problems. So, I'm OK with just felt which is less expensive and less labor intensive. Two of the 3 roofers want to use the ice dam stuff on the entire garage, which is low pitch. Other guy says two layers of felt is better.... Again, since that's all that's there now, seems OK to me.....
I think I had his brother here a couple years ago when I went out for bids on a new furnace/AC. This one company, which is pretty large, has a whole fleet of nice new trucks, flashy paint jobs. I see them all the time driving around. The estimator was the only guy who took of his shoes and put those cute little booty things on before he set foot in the house. His quote was $14K. The next highest was under $10K. And he had a deal where if I signed right away, I got like $1000 off, but it I didn't, that special was gone forever. When I told him he was out, he tried to justify his price. That lineset, for the AC, it costs $1000! I had already priced it out online and found I could buy it myself for like $220, qty 1.
Back to the ice barrier stuff for the whole roof, I just thought of one more thing that never occured to me before. Once you have that stuff stuck on, it's like on for good, no? So, if someone goes to replace the roof again, I would think it would make checking the condition of the sheathing a lot harder, if not impossible, at least from the outside. All the wood would be covered and you would not be able to see it's condtion like you would if it were bare, no?
On Thu, 7 Mar 2013 10:06:39 -0800 (PST), " snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net" wrote in Re Re-roofing Cost?:
I don't have any recent experiences to share, but that's only a 25% spread between the low/high estimates. That seems pretty close to me. My interpretation is that those represent reasonable prices in your area. I like the 15# felt because of it's durability. I never liked the looks of the light weight stuff (5# ??). I even used the
15# stuff under exterior siding.
Given that price spread, I would go with whoever looks like they are most competent.
My mistake. It wasn't the WeatherWatch that replaced the felt, it was DeckArmor:
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When I was talking to the contractor and asked him about leaving any section of the roof uncovered during the job, he said that they don't leave for the day unless the DeckArmor is installed on any exposed decking. Per the installation instructions, if installed properly, the DeckArmor can be left uncovered for up to 6 months.
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The WeatherWatch was used only on the first 3 ft on the main sections of roof. We have a fairly flat section of roof on a small addition. The WeatherWatch was used on that entire section. Every contractor that gave me an estimate recommended that for the flattish section.
The deck armor is apparently breathable, so it takes care of that problem. And a big advantage is that it can be exposed to rain for months. But since I'm going to have a dozen monkeys doing the job in a day or two, that isn't an issue. Now if I was DIY, then I'd sure need it!
Just to be clear, the Deck-Armor wasn't used because of it's ability to be exposed. It was used because it is required by GAF in order to get the lifetime warranty on the shingles. My mention of its "exposibility" was simply to point out that is must be much better (not sure that's the right word) than standard felt.
The roof itself was done in 3 days, torn off and reshingled in two. There was only one night when the roof, with the Deck-Armor installed, was left unshingled. I assume even felt would have handled that. Do they leave felt exposed over night? I don't know if I've ever seen that...could just be my lousy memory. Tarps I've seen.
I took a look at GAF's warranty and installation instructions for their Timberline shingles. Nothing there says you have to use their underlayment. They just give their products in the installation instructions as examples of underlayment.
I agree, it's much better if the roof is going to be exposed for an unusual length of time with just the underlayment, like if it's a DIY job. But I don't think it has much advantage when the job is done in a day or two. I guess it might help if you have extensive shingle blow off in a storm and the better underlayment managed to survive. I just had that happen with Sandy. I lost one large section of shingles right at the peak, about 4 ft wide and 20 ft across. The felt went too. Whether the more durable underlayment would have stayed in place is possible, I guess, but doubtful, IMO.
Yes, felt is waterproof. AFAIK, the essential part is to get the tearoff, any repair, and then felt down fast, like one day, so that it can then withstand the typical rain. It's supposed to be good for at least a week or two. If I thought there was any chance of going more than that, or expected higher winds, heavy rain, etc before the shingles went down, then for sure I'd use one of the more durable underlayments.
I'm sure this won't correlate to your details but I had my roof repalced January 2011 and I live in SE VA.
The official sq. ft. of my ranch house is 1865, but I don't think that includes the two car garage. I have a long roof, but it only has two valleys and two peaks. Can't give you the amount of shingles used but there was quite a bit left over which pissed me off. The shingles are GAF 30 yr architectural and the felt was all new of course. The total cost was $7300. There was a crew of 3-4 Mexicans there for at least 2 days ripping up the old stuff, making minor repairs, taking out the roof fans, and installing everything else, then cleaning up all the bushes. They weren't goofing off either. The contractor was a local well known one that matched the lowest invoice I had received from others.
Thanks for the info. The roof is on an angle, so it's going to be larger than the sq ft of the living space. And allowing for the garage, the total could be more like 2700 sq ft. That would be $270 a square. Also, I see online that there have been several price increases over the last year or two by the shingle suppliers. And, I'm sure there is still a Sandy premium going on. So, my lowest quote of $270 doesn' seem unreasonable.
Where I am in Texas, there were a lot of big homes with several roofing companies doing re-roofs with complete tear-offs. I always saw them doing the felt paper (underlayment) the same day as the tear-off. I think I never saw any exception to this on the re-roof. However on new homes, I've seen the plywood put on (completed) and it may be days before they begin putting on the roofing materials.
Of course the essential difference is with new construction when the roof sheathing is going up you don't have insulation, sheetrock, fixtures or furniture in the house. So, any rain that goes in, there isn't anything to damage.
The only advice I can give is to get several estimates and see if the most reputable contractor will match it. It's imperative you do your own homework to check for reputations and satisfaction of previous customers. A one year subscription to Angie's List for this information may be worth it.
Their website can be a bit tough to navigate, and it's inconsistent as far as what information is included for each product, but it's my understanding that you have to use one of the specialty underlayments in order for the "system" to be covered by the Lifetime Warranty. The Deck Armor is listed as the "Best" of the three here:
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Here's where the inconsistencies show up...
If you click on the Deck-Armor product it will state "Deck-Armor? roof deck protection is a key part of the GAF Lifetime Roofing System". The Tiger Paw and Shingle Mate products state the same thing on their page.
However, it is only on the Shingle Mate page (the lowly "Good" of their "Good-Better-Best" choices) where it specifically states the #30 felt is not covered by the lifetime warranty. Now, that may be because the Shingle Mate product is the closest to felt and it makes no sense to compare the Deck Armor or Tiger Paw to felt.
So I will agree that while Deck Armor is not required, the lifetime warranty requires at least the Shingle Mate product at a minimum. In other words, no felt, not even #30. What that tells me is that it is not just an "exposure" issue, it's a long term performance issue. Otherwise, why would they not give the lifetime warranty with #30 felt? I guess it could be so that they can sell their own underlayments, but for the cost difference, I felt it was worth it.
BTW...you said that they were going to use #15 felt. If you Google something like #15 vs. #30 felt, you'll find lots of hits leaning towards #30. e.g.
You're correct. I was referring to the plywood decking of the new roof getting wet if exposed. I don't like the idea of installing a new roof on wet plywood (assuming it has not dried out days after rain/snow) but I don't know if it could still dryout if the new roof was installed on it. Perhaps others can educate me on this.
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