FEATURED PROJECT
A complete tear-off of three layers of old shingles from a single-story home and attached garage, 21 squares in all. We replaced 150 feet of decking, then installed Owens Corning shingles in Night Sky.
About This Project
Three layers of shingles. That is what we found on this Whittier home, one roof laid over the next, then over again, until age and weight caught up with all of it. The top layer had lost so much granule that the mat underneath showed through in white patches across every plane. Covering it a fourth time was never on the table. We took all three layers off, down to the bare wood.
The before shots tell it plainly: white speckling where the protective granules had washed away, rusted vents, and an old galvanized turbine still spinning at the ridge. Granules are what shield the asphalt from the sun. Once they are gone, the shingle starts to cook, and the clock runs fast from there.
Three layers is a lot of weight sitting on framing that was never designed to carry it. Worse, every layer hides what is happening to the wood underneath. There is only one way to find out what is under there, and that is to take it all off.
Three layers means nobody ever wanted to pay for a tear-off. They just kept covering it up. By the time we get there, you have got weight the house was not built for and wood nobody has laid eyes on in decades. We pulled 150 feet of deck out of this one. That is what was hiding under there.
With the roof stripped, we inspected the deck and replaced 150 linear feet of it, plus 50 feet of starter board and fascia along the edges. The county passed the deck inspection on April 23, and the crew started waterproofing that same day. Deck Defense and Weather Lock went down across the whole roof, then a new starter strip around the perimeter and black 2-inch edge metal to close the edges clean.
Materials used
The new roof is Owens Corning in Night Sky, a deep charcoal that suits the gray-blue siding on this house. We ran high-profile ridge trim in the same color along 160 feet of ridge, set ridge vents so the attic can exhaust, and replaced every roof jack and cap, painted black so they settle into the field instead of standing out. Look at the chimney in the photos: new black base flashing, cut and set clean where the old roof used to leak.
Every vent, boot, and cap on this roof is new. On a tear-off, reusing the old metals is how you end up with a new roof that leaks in the same places the old one did.
Tear-off started on April 22. The roof was finished by the 27th, and the county signed the final on the 29th. That is the pace we aim for on every roof, here in Whittier and across Los Angeles County, including La Mirada, Santa Fe Springs, and Downey. If your roof has been covered over more than once, or you are seeing white patches where the granules used to be, let us come take a look and tell you honestly what is up there.
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