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Thanks,

Connor Valentine

www.valentineroof.com

Underlayments at a Glance

When choosing a roof, many carefully choose their roofing product but ignore the underlayment. The underlayment is a thin layer that is applied under the roofing product you see but on top of the sheathing. The purpose of this application is to serve as a vapor barrier, preventing leaks and rot. The underlayment is a very important part of the roofing system.

The most common underlayment is felt paper. This is impregnated with asphalt and comes in various thicknesses. ASTM rated D226 #30 felt is the thickest rated felt paper. There are also many synthetic underlayments. synthetics are lighter weight but many roofers don’t like them because they can be slick to walk on and be a hazard. They are also newer on the market and not as tested.

My material supplier just informed me of a new product by CertainTeed called Diamond Deck. CertainTeed is advertising that this new product is “contractor friendly” because it is lightweight, slip-resistant, and cost-effective. We will be taking a look at it soon to determine if this is a better product than the D226 #30 felt which we currently use. So far, we haven’t jumped on board the synthetic underlayment craze as we like to stick with what works. However, with a trusted brand like CertainTeed, which is our brand of choice, we will consider it.

www.valentineroof.com

Finished Project

We are finished with the cedar shingle installation. It looks great! It took us seven days and the roof surface was about 6,500 square feet. Our customer wanted a look that would go well with his Japanese Garden. He didn’t want the thick, rugged, hand-split cedar shake look. Instead he opted for a cleaner, neater look in the cedar shingle. Shingles are smaller and thinner and are installed much more tightly together.

Below are some photos. You can click to enlarge. The project address is: 17419 NE 126th Pl, Redmond, WA  98052

To learn more, visit www.valentineroof.com

What We’re Doing, Continued

I’m a little behind on blogging about our shingle project in Redmond. Here are some updated pictures. The pictures show the half-way finished installation. It is looking really good! Today it is raining but I will get some pictures of the final product soon.

Please visit our website at www.valentineroof.com

What We’re Doing-Shingle Install, Redmond

We are installing cedar shingles on a roof that was previously cedar shakes. This project is off 129th in Redmond. A lot of people think that shake and shingles mean the same thing but they don’t. They are both cedar, but shingles are 18″ in height and are installed at a   5 1/2″ exposure while cedar shakes are 24″ in height and installed at a 10″ exposure (Shakes can be installed at a 7″ exposure also).

Click photos to enlarge.

Here are some pictures of the early stages of the process. We are tearing of the cedar shake roof. Then you can see the skip sheeting and the attic in between the skips. We install two layers of heavy-duty felt paper then we will install the shingles on top. This sort of project will take us 5-7 days.

More to come later as the project continues. www.valentineroof.com

Neighborhood Discounts

Everyone wants a deal and no one wants to pay too much. So wouldn’t it make perfect sense to get three or four of your neighbors to all go in together? It would seem that material costs would be lower that way and travel costs as well. This should equal a discount on your roof!

It really doesn’t work that way. All the costs associated with installing a roof stay the same whether your roofing company installs 10 roofs in your neighborhood or just the roof on your home.

Material costs: Buying in bulk does create a discount, but bulk is a relative term. When you consider that the material suppliers for roofing companies sell materials to 30 or so companies a day, buying roofing materials in bulk is hard to do. Roofing companies basically have to be working on a hotel or very large apartment building to get a discount on materials.

Labor costs: No matter what, a roofing company has to pay its employees full-price for the work they do.

Transportation costs: If the roofing crew stayed the night at your house then that would cut transportation time and costs. Of course, this never happens. The crew members go home and sleep in their own beds every night so they still have to drive to and from the job site. Installing multiple roofs in a row in the same neighborhood doesn’t logistically change travel costs or time.

Disposal costs: Just like material costs, it takes a lot to constitute “buying in bulk” when it comes to disposal costs.

I have found that the best approach is to put forward my companies’ best price every time. This way every individual customer gets the same pricing and is treated on an individual basis. I have lost out on jobs because I didn’t give a discount. The only counter to that would be for me to raise my prices and then give a discount which would just bring me back to my original price. I prefer the simple, straight-forward approach. I offer my best price every time. I have found that most people appreciate the no-haggle approach.

Please visit our website www.valentineroof.com

Watch Out for Liens!

Even though the roofing industry seems to be in an upswing, more and more liens are getting filed against homeowners. My material suppliers informed me that they are sending out liens on a regular basis. This means weekly and sometimes daily. A material supplier (Stoneway, Allied, Pioneer, and ABC for example) is the company who sells the roofing products used on your roof to the roofing company you hire. When your roofing company doesn’t pay the supplier for the materials in a reasonable time frame, the material supplier usually files a lien on the address where the materials were installed.

The roofer doesn’t have to be out of business. Many contractors are behind on bills and that’s all it takes. Also, it has become more commonplace for roofing companies to go bankrupt then emerge with a slightly different name. The company logo and personnel stay the same only the name is slightly different and the legal owner has changed (usually someone different in the company or a relative). So the roofing company keeps doing business but leaves the unpaid bills behind to be paid by the homeowner. There is basically no recourse for the customer.

I would guess that at least 25% of the roofers in King and Snohomish Counties have gone out of business in the last two years.  A good 10-15% are operating in the red currently and are having trouble paying the bills. These are of course guesses but they are educated ones. I am not talking about “fly-by-night” companies either. I mean companies that have done work in your neighborhood with the nice trucks, polite and handsome salesmen, and that have been in business for 20 years.

If you are entertaining roofing bids, I recommend speaking with the local material suppliers to see which companies are current. If you ask your roofing company to steer you to a material supplier, they may steer you to the only one where they still have credit so best to check a little on your own. Checking out business history on the Labor and Industries website can also be helpful.

I don’t mean to make anyone overly suspicious of any roofing company, this is just a word of caution to a real problem that is very avoidable. Once again, you may be surprised at how good a company can look compared to how bad a financial state it can be in.

Best of luck out there! Remember there are good roofing companies that you can trust so just do your homework.

Visit our website, www.valentineroof.com

Energy Tax Credits for Composition Shingles

Although limited, there are Federal Energy Tax Credits  available with some composition shingles.

CertainTeed has recently come out with their Landmark Solaris which is an Energy Star rated product. This means there is a  tax credit of up to $1,500 available with the installation. The product is a composition shingle with a reflective quality. It comes in five colors and really is a nice looking shingle. Landmark Solaris is a spin-off of the popular Landmark Premium which is part of their Landmark Series.

Advantages: This is a great looking product! Very shake-like in its appearance which works perfectly for the Seattle-area look. Along with the tax credit, this product is proven to lower your heating bills and it also lasts 20-30 years (although the “limited” warranty is for 50 years which they call “lifetime”).

Disadvantages: This is an expensive product and the $1,500 may be nullified by the higher product cost.

There is also the GAF-ELK Timberline Cool Series shingle which comes in four colors. The main drawback with the Cool Series is that the colors are very light-colored wherein CertainTeed’s color scheme offers black and darker browns. Personally, I like CertainTeed’s products above all other shingle manufacturers.

Please visit our website at www.valentineroof.com

Compostion VS. Shake Breakdown

Hello again,

Since buying a new roof is not an everday purchase, many are confused about what types of products exist. Here is some info on the two most commonly installed products. Composition and cedar shake.

Composition: (AKA comp, composite, asphalt, fiberglass shingle, laminate, architectural)

 Composition shingles are by far the most common and least expensive of all roofing products. They are made of a woven fiberglass mat (also used to make boats) and asphalt (also used to make roads) so there is nothing space-aged about this product. It is however, dependable and waterproof. The simplest of composition designs is known as the “three tab” shingle. Everything else is called a laminate or architectural shingle. Those terms just mean that the shingle is actually more than one layer of shingle laminated together to give it a thicker and better look. Architectural shingles also last longer and are more durable than a three-tab.

Cedar Shake:

Many homeowners with a cedar shake roof have washed their hands of this product and switched to composition. This is usually because no one wants a roof that requires maintanence. Especially when it’s expensive. A good cedar shake roof however, doesn’t require maintanence and can last 20-30 years. Premium grade, pressure-treated cedar shakes will last much longer than the shakes installed on a new construction home. Especially if they are 3/4″ instead of 1/2″.

I would also note that shake is often referred to as “shingles” but they are not the same product. Cedar shingles are 18″ high instead of 24″ and are smooth to the touch instead of the rough “hand-split” shakes on most Northwest homes. Cedar shingles look very proper like something you would see on a British manor. While hand-split shakes look rugged like what you would expect to see on a woodsy cabin.

Why people choose composition over shake:

Price, durability, it’s easier to walk on especially when it’s wet, it’s not as much of a firehazard, it’s basically maintanence free.

Why people choose shake over composition:

It looks classier, it is very much a Northwest favorite, many HOA’s don’t allow anything but cedar shake (this is especially true on Seattle’s Eastside)

Please visit our website www.valentineroof.com

Use of Spreadsheets to Compare Roofers

I have run into a number of people recently who are using a spreadsheet to compare and contrast their various roofing bids. While I can see some benefits to this approach, I would add a few words of caution as well. The benefits may include stacking up each companies’ scope of work or “specs” against each other in an effort to determine who is doing what. Since there is no “standard” way of installing a roof, it seems pretty natural to want to find out who is doing more for less.

Here is the caution part: Roofing is a service. The quality of the roof you have installed depends more on the skill and integrity of the members of the company you choose than any product. A few months ago I bid on a job for an engineer in Sammamish. After many hours on his spreadsheet he chose another roofing company. I thanked him for his time as he was more than fair and honest with me throughout the process. A couple of weeks ago I received a call from the engineer’s neighbor. I was told that the engineer had recommended my company to do the work for her. I learned that despite his spreadsheet analysis he wasn’t pleased with the quality of work he received from the company he chose. This really got me thinking about how difficult it is to quantify things like workmanship, skill level, integrity and job process when choosing a roofing company.

 Comparing “apples to apples” as they say, can only be done to a certain extent as the most important factors in choosing the right roofing company cannot be quantified. My advice: choose a roofing company that you feel comfortable with and that is really invested in your roofing project.

Check out our website at www.valentineroof.com