9 Important Steps To Install Your New Roof
How do they get the stuffing in Twinkies? How do they build tunnels underwater? How is a roof installed? You’ll need to seek elsewhere for answers to the first two mysteries, but we can detail the nine steps required to install your central Ohio home’s new roof, so it provides years of worry-free service for you and your family.
Clear the Deck
Before a skilled roofing crew from your nearby, helpful roofer can put down a new roof, they usually have to remove the old roof. This process, tear-off, is necessary to prevent excess static loads on your house rafters, ridge beam, purlins, and struts (the wooden elements holding up the roof). Most building codes do not permit more than two layers of roofing due to weight limits. The discarded roof debris is recycled or carted to a landfill.
Your roofing contractor’s crew will inspect the bare sheathing (the large panels of plywood or oriented strand board) to ensure they are strong and need no replacing. Usually, the Scope of Work builds in the cost of some number of replacement sheathing sheets. Rarely, structural members within your attic space may need to be bolstered or replaced. If a rafter is not crowned correctly, your roof will sag; sistering a rafter to the existing member or replacing the rafter may be the answer. A strong roof deck is essential for a flawless roof installation. Only when your roofer’s crew is confident in the structural integrity of your roof deck — the rafters and sheathing — will they start the hard (yet fast!) work of installing the new roof.
Action!
A tight-working group of roofers can transform your central Ohio home in hours, taking it from tear-off to finished roof often in as little as one long day. The nine steps look like this:
- While some of the crew members continue carting the removed debris from the old roof, others are inspecting and replacing sheathing as needed
- Underlayment, a synthetic or natural felt which acts as a water barrier, is loaded up onto the roof and rolled out; most underlayment is stapled down, but some new types are self-adhesive fabrics; all underlayment prevents roofing nails from allowing water to infiltrate the sheathing
- Shingles are loaded onto a platform hoist or lift truck and delivered to the roof; one square (100 square feet) of shingles, or three packs, will keep a roofer busy for only a short time; field shingles are different from starter shingles and ridge shingles
- Water and ice shield (self-adhesive, thick, rubbery material) is laid down across the bottom three feet of your roof, in all valleys, and often across unventilated ridges to prevent ice dams from melting and saturating your sheathing; drip edge is also attached along your roof edges which do not connect to gutters
- Starter course shingles are laid down across the bottom edge of your home’s roof, over the water and ice shield; think about water flowing downhill and you can see why shingles are layered from the bottom up, so water always runs over the top of the lower course
- Once starter shingles are laid across the edge and on top of the water and ice shield, field shingles are run in carefully controlled rows; roofers either cover valleys with intersecting, overlapping rows of shingles from the adjoining roof surfaces, or they allow metal flashing to be visible in the valleys; shingles are cut with a sharp knife to fit around roofing projections, chimneys, and other features
- Ridge vents are installed at the top of your roof to allow natural convection currents to ventilate your attic space; other finishing touches include replacing rubber boots around sanitary stacks, reattaching metal vents from bathroom and kitchen fans, and reconnecting satellite dishes and other add-ons
- While part of the crew performs finishing work, other crew members are cleaning up, inspecting the roof, and removing their tools
- The project manager from your roofing contractor performs a final inspection before pronouncing the job complete and inviting you, the homeowner, to check out your dazzling new roof!
Too Important
A roof is too important to leave in the hands of anyone other than an experienced, dedicated residential roofing contractor. The nine steps greatly simplify all the knowledge, skills, and tools our roofing crews must have to do a great job with every job. A roofing crew works as an integral unit, watching out for one another, moving heavy materials with precision and speed, and efficiently installing your beautiful new roof.
When finished, the roofing crew is tired but pleased with their craftsmanship. And you will be pleased with your home’s new, water-resistant, tough-as-nails roof. If you are in the central Ohio area, please contact us today at Allstate Exteriors & Restoration. We are ready to get to work on your home’s new roof, step by important step!
