Information About Redoing Your Roof

So I am here with Steve from Abbey Roofing, and a pleasure. I really appreciate this. And the reason why I'm videotaping this is— videotaping, it's like, it's like 1993. Yeah, I like that. The reason why we're videoing this is because I'm horrible at delivering info to Julia, my beautiful wife. So I figured I'll just get Steve here, get him on video, and he could relay the info and And this way, if you need to know anything about roofing, getting your roof done, well then he's the guy.

Alright, so let's begin. So here I have a typical pamphlet that I give out, which includes all the basic details you need. So R.B.Q. license, insurance.

That's to make sure you know what you're doing, right?

Exactly. Itinerant license, which gives me the right to sell outside of my office. Okay. We can do a job at your home as opposed to having you come to the office. Okay. And then I have some certificates here. APCHQ, as well as some of the certifications. I'm certified with CertainTeed, is one company that we work with. I'm also certified with BP, and I believe I have my IKO certificate as well. So those are the 3 main brands that most roofers work with in Canada. Okay. And I'm gonna show you basically today the CertainTeed and the BP, but if we want, we can also grab an IKO catalog, IKO catalog, and look at that as well.

Sure.

So on this side I have, which is important, this is probably something you'll show your wife. This is the underlayment. It's the things you don't see. Okay. You know, so obviously you got to choose a color and all that stuff and a fancy shingle, but at some point the things that do a lot of the job in terms of completing and protecting and sealing the roof are the things you don't see.

Okay.

So there's the membrane and the paper, which we'll run through when I run through the contract with you.

So how many layers are there, let's say, on a roof?

Does it work like that? Yeah, sure. So let me run through this at the same time. We'll answer that. So the first thing we're gonna do is we're going to remove all all of the existing stuff.

Yeah, it's in a bad way.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, specifically the back.

Yeah, the front wasn't so bad. The back— but we, we bought the house knowing that we were going to have to do it.

So perfect. So the, um, the idea would be remove it all right down to the plywood. And you most likely, with the age of the home, you'll have plywood.

Yeah, that— the home was built in, uh, 1969.

Yeah, so you'll most likely have plywood. Some older homes you have planks. Okay. And so there's spacing between the planks, and oddly enough, those planks come from the foundation.

Okay.

They used to do— they would pour the foundation using the planks and then bring them up, which was kind of interesting. So now you would have plywood. Once the snow is off the roof, we'll take a good walk on the roof to make sure that the plywood is not too soft, right? Springing, not bending, because back in the '60s specifically, you were allowed to use as little as 3/8 of an inch plywood.

Okay.

Where now the code is 5/8. Okay. However, you can use asplanite. So the asplanite, the trade-off is not ideal, but it's much more stiff and rigid.

Right.

Except asplanite, if you take on water, swells and absorbs.

So if I have 3/8, is that a problem?

It's, uh, we'll look at it. I mean, it's typically, um, some people would like to— 3/8, I don't see any undulations or dips between the trusses, so I I think you probably don't have 3/8, but if you did, it would be more cosmetic than functional. However, if you were to get an inspection, it would definitely come up as a negative on the report. You know, inspector would walk on it and go, roof's a little springy, a little soft, and that's because you have 3/8. So we often recommend to resurface with a half inch if you do have that 3/8 of an inch, and we leave that at the discretion of the homeowner because functionally it's not going to change anything. It's more cosmetic, and to get that checkmark when you're— when you're installing a house. Yeah, the inspection. So we'll remove everything off. If there's any rotten plywood, we typically replace 100 square feet, which is 3 sheets, 3 4x8 sheets. We'll install a drip edge around the perimeter. You do have that right now. That's a small little metal flashing that extends onto the front fascia and then back onto the roof about a good 2.5 inches.

I'm going to pretend like I know what that means.

Okay, so let me show you. You have a roof that comes down, you have your gutter here, so you have a drip edge, basically a little flashing that promotes the water to go in the gutter.

Okay, so it's like a, it's like a slide.

Yeah, sort of, exactly. Yeah, it'd be exactly a little slide that you put there to make sure it doesn't go between the gutter and the fascia.

Okay.

Then from there, we're going to put 2 rows, so 6 feet of membrane.

Okay.

Okay, and then we'll start about halfway through that first sheet we'll put synthetic paper.

Okay.

And that synthetic paper will cover the entire surface of the roof, and we're using a synthetic now versus the black paper. So that's right here. So when you're talking to your better half, you can show her that's on the balance of the roof.

Okay.

And then the first 6 feet, as we talked about, is that membrane. Okay. So membrane peels and sticks.

Okay.

So that'll stick right to that drip edge. Okay. It'll prevent any water penetration at the transfer point. Okay, and then the rest of the roof will be the synthetic, which is very strong versus the paper. You see, that's—

right, that's not going anywhere.

The woven and the paper, you can still rip the entire paper.

Right.

So this is the trend to go towards the synthetic paper. Let me go back to our paper here. So that's denoted here with a 6 feet synthetic paper. The new shingles that I'm recommending, as I said, there are 3 brands that we work with. I have the 2 catalogs here. That I'm going to recommend, and that is, we work really closely with BP. We have promos on radio, we do some print ads together, okay, and co-op. So this is the brand that I would recommend for you.

Okay.

Reason we like BP is one, they're made in Canada, represent, represent right here in Lassalle. Actually, there's a big factory, and what I like is they're the only shingles that have two sticky bands on the back.

Okay.

So for wind resistance. That second band, they all have a band that sticks at the, at the bottom here, the dotted band, if you would, or the perforated, and that'll stick. And the nice thing about the BP is they have that second one, okay, which is just below the nail line. And so as you're nailing, it's actually bonded.

Nailed and— okay.

Yeah, it'll stick. So all it takes is a good 20-30 days of heat and and that whole surface will, in addition to the nails that we put in, will all stick together.

Okay.

That's what creates like a tight sealed skin on top of the roof, if you will. Cool. All right, so, uh, what do we have next? Install— you see, yeah, using new self-sealing shingles, using 5 to 6 nails per shingle, seal all joints with caulking.

So let me stop you for— so I, I was asking the question because I was looking, you know, we bought the house knowing that we had to redo the roof, and then I asked the question on Instagram, like, could I redo the roof during the winter? People were like— people were actually split on, on do we, can we, can we not. But you're saying no because that's why you need the heat.

Well, roof— roofs, no. So the roofs, roofs can get done, okay, um, but the, um, the shingles won't stick together until they get those 30 days of heat, right? So we, we typically, um would recommend getting roofs done anywhere between, you know, the start of the spring is probably the best time. April, May, June. I'm not saying July and August aren't great times. July and August are really good because that roof will probably bond and stick quickly within days or weeks. I mean, we've seen jobs stick within the day, you know, just because it's so hot. It's just, you know, it's hot. So I mean, in terms of the guys working and, you know, it's tough. You have to take more care in terms of walking on the roof. And then of course the fall is another big push for us. So the roofing season, we find that people really gear up in the spring. That's probably because, you know, they've looked at the roof all winter and they say like, this gotta get done.

Oh man, I was watching, I was like, oh my God. And you see the ice, you see everything, everything was just like, oh my God, just stay okay until the spring.

Exactly. So we get a lot of calls March, April, typically April, May actually. Are the two big months. And then oddly enough, the same thing happens September, October, and I think it's for the same reason. People spend a lot of time—

you get worried.

Yes, and people spend a lot of time in the backyard. They'll look up and they'll see, oh my goodness, I can't go through the winter, right, with that, right?

Yeah.

So both are good. However, you still want to make sure that you do that. When once you get the roof done, you have that 15 to 20 to 30 days of Absolutely. So that's why we really recommend the spring. You're doing that, you're doing— you've actually chosen the best time to go.

Okay, perfect.

So on this side, yeah, yeah, thumbs up for Adam. He's doing it right for the first time ever. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Exactly.

So remember, when we were in the backyard, we're looking at the roof, there's one pipe that sticks up. It's just sort of here in the corner, the rear, and it's the plumbing pipe. So that's where the exhaust for the plumbing is. Okay. It's a negative pressure for the plumbing system, so there's a flashing that needs to be changed around that.

Okay.

So we'll just simply put a sleeve over that and reseal on the roofline.

Cool.

And then you have valleys both on the front and the back. Yeah, that's where a lot of the, uh, the two roofs meet.

Yeah, I noticed a lot of, uh, condensation or dripping throughout the winter. Of course, in that area.

Yeah, well, that's where the water, um, is basically directed from two roofs and then come down there, so you get a lot of ice and snow buildup. So in that valley, what we'll do is we'll put some membrane. Okay. First layer will be membrane, and then we'll put metal, which is a 9x9, a 9x9 metal. We'll seal all that with plastic cement or tar. Okay. And then we'll put our— the way we do our valleys is it's a closed valley. Sometimes you'll look at some homes and it's an open valley. Okay. We recommend a closed valley. Where one shingle will go up the second roof, if you would, and will come down and will cut a nice clean line.

Okay.

So there's an overlap of shingles in that valley.

Right.

And we try not to nail within anywhere within the valley, 6 to 9 inches outside that valley. And this is a method that we've gone to about 4 or 5 years, maybe even 6 years now, and we've had zero issues. Cool. In our crazy winters.

I like zero issues, especially with this this winter. It was crazy.

Well, you've noticed the last couple where it's very different, where you get mild spells in the middle, you get, uh, 3 feet of snow followed by rain.

Yeah.

And of course, all of that's happening in that valley.

Yeah, exactly.

So we want to make sure we, we seal that up.

Perfect.

Uh, your chimney— you have a chimney, uh, was on the, what, the back left side?

Yeah.

Um, so we'll take that old— all that metal that you see there now comes right off, and we will put some membrane about 8 inches up that chimney, right? And then we'll put a 4x4 counter flashing. Now, so if I, if I'll draw that for you, but go ahead.

Our chimney is like, we're done, we don't have a fireplace. Okay, you know, like, so should we just get rid of that, or?

I would recommend if it was on the inside of the house. Okay, meaning, you know, sometimes you have a chimney just in the middle, in the middle, but it's but it's on the— I would say get rid of it because you don't need it. The problem with getting it on the outside of the house is it ties into brickwork, right? And so it makes it a little more complicated.

Okay, so the move is to keep it.

It's a good question. It would be a bigger ordeal to get rid of it on the outside.

Okay.

Okay, so I'd probably keep it, but just do it right. Just, you— what you could do is get a cap put on it so that there's, you know, there's no issues of infiltration of water going in the actual chimney. So what we typically do is we will, as I said, we take everything around that chimney off, we'll run some membrane up the chimney wall for about 6 inches, then I do a counter flashing, which is literally just a 90-degree metal, 4x4, and basically that's where we seal along the bottom of the chimney. They'll lock that metal, they'll seal it all with plastic, And then what you see, you know, you see a color flashing now, that's called the chimney flashing. And that'll basically be the second layer of protection with a bead of caulking. So it'll be sealed with membrane, it'll be sealed with that counter flashing down at the roofline.

Okay.

And then you'll put that finishing flashing to sort of finish it off and seal it for a third and final time.

So we're good.

Yeah, yeah, that thing will be sealed well along the roofline. So the next line item is wall flashing, which your construction home, we have no wall flashing to consider in this.

Okay.

Oh, ventilation is next. So you've seen those boxes sort of sticking up, it looks like little chimneys. Yeah. So you have 4, we're gonna replace them. We're gonna keep the configuration of 4.

Okay.

We're just gonna replace them because they tend to, well, they rust over time.

Right.

And your roof is gonna last you anywhere between It's a fiber. I'm not sure you're aware, but the shingles you have right now are paper-based.

Okay.

And that was an idea that I guess somebody had to— save some money? I don't know if it was a money thing, if it was just maybe— they say they were organic.

Right.

So it was a way of, you know, when you put that rubble or waste, if you would, rubbish or waste in a landfill, that it would dissolve and sort of go away.

Okay.

Problem is no one thought it was going to happen while it was on the roof.

Right.

So, um, they went away from, uh, an asbestos-based shingle to a paper organic base.

Okay.

Which has been a bit of a disaster. And now they've moved back all these manufacturers to a fiberglass base.

Okay.

Which is much more similar to what asbestos was.

It was a top— I guess just done right.

Correct. Well, if there's no, um, the asbestos being a short fiber caused lung issues. Right. This is a long sort of woven fiber. Okay. But it basically brings back the life of the shingles that we used to have, lasting anywhere between 20 to maybe even maybe up to 30 years.

So does that mean my roof is gonna last for 20 years?

It'll last a good 20, 25 years.

Really? Okay.

Yes sir, yes sir. Where were we now?

Well, let me ask you a question at this juncture. Guarantee-wise, right, I know that's a big thing in terms of getting roofs done. What is a guarantee? What is, you know, how does all that work?

So the manufacturer are offering on the shingles that I'm proposing, which would be the BP Mystique or Everest, or the CertainTeed Landmark, or if you're interested, the IKO also offer a Cambridge or a Dynasty. These are all the fiberglass architectural style shingles. So they all compete with each other, all priced very competitively, and all come with what they're calling limited lifetime warranty. I always tell my customers, hang on that word.

Yeah, limited.

This is a lot of things that need to be done. So limited, first of all, we're talking about a warranty against defects, manufacturer's defects, or issues that we're seeing now, which is premature breakdown, granules coming off before, you know, the life of the shingle, and curling, etc.

Right.

So that's the warranty. It doesn't mean that your roof's gonna last forever, right, because that would put us all out of business.

Yeah, exactly, there you go.

So it means that your roof will last, if you look at the— some actuarial accountant came to you and put this crazy formula. So probably in 50 years, or 30 years more likely, if you went back to get a claim you would probably get about $50, right? Or seriously, maybe $500, right? So it's a proration. So what happens here is for the first 15 years, you're covered 100% against any manufacturer defects, breakdown in the shingle, okay? And then from year 15, it starts to prorate, right? You know, where it could last, um, forever. I mean, you might get a small token of money in 50 years or 30 years or 40 years, however long it lasts.

But it's going this way.

It's definitely going down while pricing of labor and materials is going up. So it's going to be an insignificant amount, but it's a good way for companies to throw that lifetime word in there. Okay. Where most people are happy to get 25 years out of a shingle if it makes sense.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

The other thing is too, is the odds of people staying in a home for beyond that is quite rare, I guess, right? So I think the whole— it's a marketing play where companies are counting on paperwork and warranties being traded, lost, or just people moving on. But you could feel real confident knowing that if you do stay in the house, that you're good for a good 25 years.

Okay, cool.

Now what's available, which is interesting when you're talking about warranties, is these companies do offer extended warranties, which will take that 0 to 15 at 100% right to 50 years. Okay. So there's a cost to doing that, which is roughly about 5% of the cost of the job.

Okay.

But you could literally take that warranty to 50 years against any manufacturer's defects.

Obviously, you know, transparency, it's, it's an upsell, but would you recommend it?

It's a good question.

Because we've spoken, you're a straight shooter, you know?

Yes. So I would say the following: depending on how long you plan on staying in the house, the interesting thing about it is that that warranty is also transferable.

Okay.

So I look at it from two ways. If you're young like you guys and think you're going to stay in the house a long time, it could be worth it. I mean, you know, it's a fairly insignificant amount of money to extend that warranty. Just to make sure you're set. Peace of mind. And then for someone who's looking to sell the house, I say if you're looking to sell it within 10 years, that first warranty, that basic warranty, is also transferable for that first 10 years. But beyond that, it's no longer transferable. So it might be a good idea then to say, hey, if you want to sell your house in 12, 15 years, and you say that there's a warranty, 38, a 35-year warranty, right?

It could be beneficial, right?

It could be beneficial. Okay, that said, there's a lot of people that just don't give much credit to any warranty. So I mean, it's really depending on yourself, the people that, you know, potentially buy the house, and what they feel on warranties in general.

It sounds like it could be a good play. It could be.

Yeah, it could be. Okay, so let's get— we talked about ventilation. We're going to go to the Formax events. I have a— you see, there's a note here that I put option, and that's because I wasn't sure with renovations that you were doing, bathrooms, etc. So there's a specific box, a ventilation box called a CT4. Okay. It's in French, they would call it a clapet. Okay. So it's a box with a shutter or a damper on it that you use for ventilating either kitchen fans or bathroom fans.

Okay.

So we'll take a look and see at some point whether you need that, or often sometimes those fans could be vented through the side of the house. Okay. So not knowing where you were venting or what renovations you may or may not do, I included that. Sure. We'll have to— that's an option.

Okay, cool.

$150, you get one of those vents put in.

Okay, cool.

And then there's other things that we talked about on the phone, but we'll add here. As extras that we need to consider, there is soffits on the front and back of the non-mansard roof.

Right, so mansard roof is the roof that I have, which is essentially the one that comes down towards the front of the house.

Correct. So the one that's sort of on a straight wall, right? You have it on the side.

Yeah.

And you have it, I believe, on the front only, not on the—

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, so on that side, you have no soffit, right? So the wall just goes straight up and hits the roof.

Okay.

And it's an unfortunate— I won't call it a flaw, but it certainly causes issues with our winters where you don't have a soffit to pull in air into that attic.

Okay.

It limits the design of that roof, limits the attic ventilation. So there's two things that we're going to look at. We need to determine on the mansard side If you want to put in more ventilation, they have a couple of different options. There's vents, and there's also a vented drip edge.

Okay.

So you've seen that metal that specifically on a mansard we spoke of a little metal that's about an inch and a half. On the mansard, it's about 3 inches.

It runs at the top, right?

Correct. It runs along the top just below the shingle line. Yeah. What we could do there is you cut a strip of 2 inches all along the top of that roof.

Okay.

And then we install, it's called a vented mansard drip edge.

Okay.

It's somewhat, if you look at it, it looks sort of like a gutter upside down.

Okay.

But imagine that gutter having a mesh or a fine netting to prevent things from flying into the attic. Okay.

Okay, okay, cool.

So what we do there, we put it all along the edge.

Yeah.

And that's like putting a mini soffit and allowing that soffit—

it's necessary. Like, it's—

I would say for a mansard roof, it's something that I would definitely do. So on that east side, yeah, we would open that up and get more circulation, and that'll help prevent ice and snow buildup.

Okay, cool, perfect.

That's what I was going to ask. Perfect. And then on the side that's not a mansard, what we'll do while we're up on the roof, we'll make sure that the soffits are open. And if not, we could do that from above because you do have a perforated metal right there already installed. If you didn't have a perforated soffit, we would recommend just doing it from the bottom and replacing all that aluminum.

Right.

The fact that you do have a perforated soffit metal installed, we can literally just pull back the plywood, see if it's open, if not, cut it and make sure that you get proper ventilation throughout the house.

Cool.

So those would be the two extras that we have to consider, and we can look at that either before or during the job. Sure. And you have the shingles to choose. Yeah. And what we do for that, we have the two catalogs, which are nice. Okay. But we also give you this pamphlet, which often the member of the family choosing the color can appreciate. Yeah, it doesn't always mean it's the wife.

It doesn't always mean it's the wife.

In your case, you're saying that—

no, we're a pretty good team when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Yeah. So what we've done here is this is a list of homes that we've done over the years. Oh, awesome. In the West Island, so very close to you.

So I could go check out all these places and see what— okay, wow.

And they're in order of— they're classified by shingle type, color, by address. So you just literally go— if you're in Dollard like we are today, you would just go and Hey, I want to see a two-tone gray roof in Dollard, and you get your addresses. Oh man, should find one. Yeah, within a few, uh, streets. Yeah, in the West Island.

Oh, that's incredible.

Pretty good. So that helps. That's cool.

Yeah, for sure.

That's a positive tool.

Very, very cool.

And then you have obviously my card with, uh, office or cell number, correct, if you need to, uh, to follow up on that. So I will put all this back.

Are there any other things that I'm not— you know, now that we went through our first winter, it was our first season in the house, um, I guess it was good and bad experiencing that first. You know, it was, it was a lot of things to look out for, to consider. And also with the sense of security that we knew we were doing the roof in this spring, we were kind of like, okay, well, whatever happens, like should be good, right? Um, just in terms of like the difference between seasons, is there anything to like look out for to make sure that you're doing right, to see if you're doing wrong? And are there things that you could do to, let's say, improve a roof but not necessarily have to redo the whole thing? Or—

yeah, I think the, um, the main thing you, you want to look at is, um, specifically in the winter. I mean, in the summer there's not much to right? And it is what it is. You get some hot summers, it's gonna bake the roof, it's gonna heat up the roof. So the thing you want to do to really promote longevity is the things we're talking about, which is ventilation. The attic system needs to be well insulated to ensure that you're, you know, you're heating the home and you're not losing it all through the attic. So there's a few things that you got to watch out for. Would be insulation and vapor barrier. There's a vapor barrier that is typically that— I don't know if you've done some construction, but there's a plastic sheet. Used to be paper, paper in the old days, but now plastic.

Right.

And the thicker that plastic, the better.

Okay.

So what's happening a lot these days are people like this home are putting a lot of pot lights, and without insulation and a good vapor barrier, what happens is the heat from those pot lights would go into the attic and heat up the attic, as well as every opening we've made is piercing through that vapor barrier. So ideally what you want to make sure is that there's— they sell boxes or cases to put around that, that seal around pot lights.

That keep the heat in.

It keeps the heat within that area as well as the humidity from extending into the attic. The nice thing now though is LED. LEDs, they don't heat up as much. But you remember back in the day—

oh man, they were fire—

halogen lights were like insanely hot.

Yeah.

So you imagine in an area like this— yeah, yeah, it's crazy hot in there. Yes. So I mean, that's one thing you want to do in general, just make sure that the attic space, specifically in the wintertime, is as close to the outside temperature as possible.

Okay.

And that will prevent ice damming or water melting between the snow layer and the roof. And that's what you want. Having snow on your roof is not a bad thing.

Okay.

But having ice and icicles and a lot of dripping water underneath that layer—

That's what I was wondering throughout. You know, I saw icicles build up on the back of the house, and I called my dad. I was like, is this an issue? You know?

Right. I guess it— so it depends on how much ice it is and how much dripping there is. Yes, it could be an issue. So what you really want is a nice insulated, well-insulated attic with good ventilation. Right. The ventilation, what it's going to do, it's going to turn that air ideally 3 to 4 times an hour.

Okay.

Which is going to make sure that the attic space itself is closer to outside temperature than it is to the heat in the inside.

Right.

And that'll prevent all of that issues in the wintertime. So that— I would say in terms of longevity, that's one thing to look for. Obviously, try to keep as much debris, leaves, if you have pine trees or needles, you know, those trees that have needles, if you have cedars, keep that off the roof if you can.

Okay.

And if it doesn't blow off with wind, maybe maybe get that off, you know, with a blower. Sure. Because the more humidity and stuff that's trapped on the actual roof will just hurt the length.

Okay. Well, man, I really appreciate this. I'm excited to share this info in this video.

I'm anxious to get some feedback.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I, I already, um, you know, I mentioned a few times on Instagram that I was redoing my roof, and then I got in touch with you and I think people are, they're, they're interested in knowing more without having an outlet to find out more unless they make the call. So I think this will be a cool video for people to watch if they're interested in redoing it. And if you have any questions, you could contact me and I could put you in touch with Steve, or you could just contact him at Abbey Roofing. I really appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to, uh, to the project.