Adam Sand explains why roof valleys wear out faster than surrounding shingles and compares three installation methods. Metal W valleys with ice-and-water shield last longest because water flows through rigid metal instead of wearing shingles. Woven valleys wear fastest since water pools and flows slowly through the shingles themselves.
Homeowners don't necessarily get it at the rate that other people do, which is like, why is it that my valleys are wearing out faster than the rest of the roof? The life of a raindrop campaign was to get buyers, and we wanted to have some kind of incentive. And we experimented with something that was a little more creative. On the infographic, which we eventually turned into a video because this one did so well, we said, how does a roof valley work? This is all about the rain's journey to the huddle. Party in the grass is what we called it. So the idea was, how do we make it so that homeowners could understand how water flows on the roof? One of the successful elements here is showing the problem, which is that your valley looks like this. You get the customer to be aware of the problem before you declare the solution, because if they don't understand the problem, they won't see value in the solution. We have to be very intentional about how we put all this together. What are the different types of values that exist? So we would show, okay, there's weaving, and in here, we show, like, this is how it's put together, and this is how the raindrop flows, right? It goes from left to right, left to right, right, sloshing back and forth. Then we show the closed valley and show how you shingle one side and shingle the other side and cut it. And then you get a straight path. So you still get wear on the shingles, but we show there's a straight path. And then finally, we show the W valley and how we shingle both sides, cut both sides, and we put this metal thing in the middle. And so when we kind of show that, hey, there's these two pieces of plywood that are going to shove together. That's not watertight. We put shingles on top of it to make it watertight. Then there's three different ways to put shingles on it to make it, to a differing degree, watertight. And so we show that in the valley, right? The water runs into the middle. There's this W that keeps the water from sloshing back and forth. Now we have something that customers go, oh, that makes sense to me. I understand what that would look like now, and I kind of want to buy that solution. The really cool thing is when you can turn this into video. So I want to just show you guys what that looks like here.
The life of a raindrop. The life of a raindrop is a simple one. A raindrop's entire purpose in life is to find his way to his final resting place. The puddle party in the grass. Every raindrops favorite place on earth. The problem is that every raindrop has a different path to the party. In some cases, these raindrops have to visit your roof before funneling their way down to the grass. The most critical part of your roof installation is in the valleys. The first question we need to ask is how does a roof valley work? A valley is the point where two slopes of a roof meet and funnel water together. Those two slopes are typically made of plywood and are cut to fit together almost perfectly. Usually there's a big side where more water flows and a small side with less valleys are critical leak areas. Shingles wear out fastest in valleys because there is more volume of water draining down a valley. A valley is where two sheets of plywood sheets meet and they always have a gap. Take a look at how. The valley where these shingles overlap is way more worn out than than the shingles on either side. This results in many homeowners having to pay to replace an entire roof because the valleys look worn out. There are three kinds of valleys most commonly found on roofs. It is very important to consider what kind of valley you have installed on your home. The first and worst in our opinion at Sargent's Roofing is the woven valley. This is where the shingles are installed over one another, weaving them together, crisscrossing them. This installation process wears out the shingles more. The water has a very slow trip down the roof, washing more granules off along the way. Down there is a much better way and the more common roof we install in our customers homes and that is the closed valley or sometimes called the closed cut valley. There's more time and expertise required to install this properly. This is done by first shingling up the small side and over to the big side of the roof where more water flows, then shingling up the big side of the valley, installing shingles over the first layer last, you cut the big side and seal the seam. This not only causes less single stress during insulation, but is also more watertight. Most importantly, it reduces the wear from water by creating a clean path for water to funnel down the roof. However, the higher concentration of water in a narrow path along the shingles still wears them out faster than the rest of the roof surface. Finally, the third and our personal recommendation for any homeowner who wants a roof to last and look better for longer is the metal W valley. This valley is designed not only to be impenetrably watertight, but also to look great in this case, the valleys last longer than the roof. It all starts with a roll of ice and water shield which is basically a big sticker made of waterproof material. This is rolled out and laid in the valley and sticks in place with adhesive. On top of that, a sheep of ridged valley metal is laid in place. This has a W shape to it to make sure to direct both faces of water down the roof without colliding and splashing too much. The valley metal is nailed into place at the outer edge with no nails going anywhere near the center. After which the nails are covered by shingling up and over the metal and given a nice clean sealed cut on both sides. This effectively designs a fast flowing, low resistance, durable water slide for all the raindrops. With a metal valley on your roof, you will only have to replace the roof once the main faces of the roof start to show signs of significant wear, not just the valleys. This way, during your next rainstorm, you can rest easy knowing that your home is waterproof and protected and designed with a long term appearance taken into consideration at the start. And of course you know you are creating a fast and fun way for your raindrops to find the path to the party in the grass.
This can also be the video on the top of the landing page that offers the free metal valleys for the terms and conditions. Being what we did, which is up to 40ft for free, and then everything else after, they'd have to pay the standard rate of $10 per foot, which is in the terms and conditions.
