FEATURED PROJECT
A 24-square tear-off of stone-coated metal tile and the wood shake beneath it on a two-story home. We re-sheeted the deck in radiant barrier OSB to meet city code, then installed Owens Corning Sierra Gray shingles.
About this project
From the street, this roof looked like it had years left in it. Stone-coated metal tile, gray, uniform, nothing missing. What you could not see from the driveway was that the house was carrying two roofs at once, and the one on the bottom was the problem.
The metal tile had been installed over a grid of battens, a system that lets an installer lay new tile without removing what is already there. Underneath, in this case, was the original wood shake. And under that, spaced skip sheathing: 1x boards nailed with gaps between them so cedar shakes could breathe from both sides. That was normal practice when this house was built. It is also the reason nothing modern can be fastened to it.
LeonardoProject managerPeople hear "skip sheathing" and assume we are upselling them. Go look at the tear-off photo. Those gaps are two inches wide. There is nothing to nail a shingle to. You are not putting a new roof on that deck, you are building the deck first.
Orange required the entire roof to be re-sheeted in radiant barrier OSB. That is not an add-on we sold. It is code here. It also means the attic now has a reflective layer sitting between it and the afternoon sun.
Permits went in on November 1 and tear-off started on the 5th. Both layers came off 24 squares of roof, plus every nail. The contract allowed 100 linear feet of wood replacement. We used 80 feet of 1x6 shiplap plus 15 feet of starter board and fascia.
Those numbers are worth a second look. A roof this old almost always hides soft wood at the eaves, and pricing a wood allowance up front is how you keep the job about the work instead of about a surprise invoice halfway through.
Build log
Permits pulled. City confirms the roof has to be sheeted in radiant barrier OSB.
Tear-off begins. Stone-coated tile off first, then the wood shake under it.
Re-sheeting. Half-inch radiant barrier OSB across every plane, hips and valleys cut in.
Deck inspection passed. Crew starts covering up the same afternoon.
Roof complete. Field, ridge vents, caps and jacks all in.
Skylight set. The 4 by 4 living room unit goes in, siding added at the inspector's request.
Final inspection passed. Job closed out with the city.
Dates taken from the project manager's daily job notes.
LeonardoProject managerDeck inspection is the one that matters. Once it passes, everything above it is protected work. If you skip that call and get caught, the whole roof comes back off. We do not gamble on that.
Dry-in went on right behind the inspector. Deck Defense synthetic underlayment across the field, WeatherLock at the vulnerable areas, starter strip around the full perimeter, white two-inch edge metal to match the trim.
What went on the roof
Shingles went on in Sierra Gray. Ridge vents run the ridge under a high-profile cap, so the attic pulls air in at the eaves and pushes it out at the peak. Every roof jack and cap was replaced rather than reused, then painted white to disappear into the trim. Compare the two rusted vent caps in the before photo to the single clean stack in the after shot. That is the detail most homeowners never think to ask about, and it is the one that tells you who was on the roof.
The roof itself was finished on November 14. The job was not. A 4 by 4 skylight for the living room was written into the contract, and final inspection was held until it was in. It went up on the 19th, flashed into the field the way you see it below: metal frame, step flashing tight to the courses, nothing depending on a bead of caulk to stay dry.
The inspector also asked for siding at the wall where the roof meets the two-story wing. We put it in the same day. Final inspection passed on November 20.
What this homeowner has now is a roof and a deck that are both new and both signed off by the city, instead of a third layer stacked on a 1970s shake frame.
We replace roofs like this across Orange County, and this exact layer cake shows up constantly in the older tract neighborhoods of Villa Park, Tustin, and Anaheim. If you have tile or shake up there and you have never seen what is underneath it, that is the conversation worth having before the next rain, not after.
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