FEATURED PROJECT
A full tear-off and reroof of a single-story Tudor cottage that still carried an original asbestos transite tile roof. We coordinated licensed abatement, re-sheeted the deck, then installed PABCO Cascade shingles with copper valleys.
About This Project
Some roofs can't just be torn off. This one is a good example. When the homeowner called us about a tired roof on a single-story storybook Tudor cottage, the first thing we recognized from the ground was the roof covering itself: an old transite tile, the kind of cementitious shingle that was commonly made with asbestos.
You can see the original roof above, worn thin at the ridges with debris settling into the valleys. Before anyone talked about shingle colors, we had one job, and that was to confirm what we were dealing with and handle it the right way. We brought in a licensed environmental firm to sample and test the roof before a single tile came off.
What we confirmed before we started
The lab pulled six asbestos samples and two lead samples and put the results in writing. Once the material was confirmed as asbestos transite, this stopped being a roofing job that starts on day one and became a sequenced job that starts with abatement.
That distinction is where a lot of homeowners get burned, because a crew that tears off asbestos transite without containment is creating a health and legal problem, not saving anyone time.
People want to know why we didn't just start roofing. The answer is you legally and safely can't. That roof was asbestos transite, so it gets tested, notified to the air-quality district, and removed under containment by a licensed crew first. We built the whole schedule backward from that.
So we coordinated the licensed abatement crew, who set up HEPA containment, filed the required 14-day notification with the air-quality district, and removed and disposed of the asbestos transite and roofing felt under negative pressure. That work runs on its own clock and its own certification, and holding the line on it is part of what you are hiring a general contractor to manage.
Test the roof
Licensed firm samples for asbestos and lead, results in writing.
Notify and abate
14-day air-quality notification, HEPA containment, transite and felt removed under negative pressure.
Tear off and inspect
Old covering cleared, roof deck exposed and inspected plane by plane.
Re-sheet the deck
Roughly 100 linear feet of failing deck replaced before anything went back on.
Reroof
Underlayment, leak barrier, PABCO Cascade shingles, copper valleys, ridge and edge metal.
Deck inspection is where honest roofers and optimistic ones part ways
Under the old covering we found roof deck that would not have held up under a new system, so we re-sheeted roughly 100 linear feet of it before anything went back on. Skipping that step hides the problem for a year and lets it come back through your new roof.
This cottage has a steep pitch and a sweeping curved catslide eave, the bell-shaped sweep that rolls down over the arched brick entry. That curve is charming from the street and unforgiving on the roof, because a rigid shingle has to follow a bend without buckling or gapping. We ran PABCO Cascade shingles in the Oakwood color, cut in the signature fish-scale pattern, which echoes the scalloped character of the original tile instead of flattening the house into a generic composition roof.
The copper valleys and that curved eave are where you earn it. We wanted the new fish-scale pattern to carry the same rhythm the old tile had, and we set copper in the valleys because it lasts and because it looks right on a house this age. Get the layout wrong on that sweep and the whole roof reads crooked.
Under the shingles we laid GAF Deck Defense as the underlayment and set WeatherLock leak barrier at the vulnerable areas, then finished with brown edge metal and a high-profile ridge to match the roofline. The copper valley flashing shown above does two jobs at once: it channels water off a complex roof with several intersecting planes, and it gives the house a material that ages gracefully instead of streaking.
While the roof was open, the homeowner added a comfort upgrade by change order. We installed a radiant barrier in the attic, the foil layer over the rafters above the fiberglass batts. On a Southern California roof that bakes in afternoon sun, that reflective layer pushes radiant heat back out before it loads into the living space, which is a small line item that pays for itself in summer.
The finished roof, shown in the front elevation at the top, keeps the cottage looking like itself, only sound and weather-tight this time. This is the kind of residential roofing we do across our Southern California service area: full tear-offs, transite and older roof systems that need careful handling, steep and complex rooflines, and reroofs where the goal is a roof that fits the house and holds up. If your home is telling you it's time, we can walk the roof with you and lay out exactly what it needs.
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