NA: Roof replacement

J

JOhnH

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I'm considering purchasing a 4,500 sq ft house with an 18 yr old gable roof and asphalt shingles. Around here some of the insurance companies won't write a home owners insurance policy if the roof is over 10 yrs old.
Can anyone give me a ball park estimate or range for roof replacement?
 
Well just for starters, 2110 sq ft house and estimates I got last summer were between 18k and 34k from roofing companies.
 
Do you plan to stick with comp shingles? Is a standing seam roof an AMOC with the insurance company? Does your gable roof have any hog valleys?
 
asicer said:
Do you plan to stick with comp shingles? Is a standing seam roof an AMOC with the insurance company? Does your gable roof have any hog valleys?
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Standing seam roofs are leaps and bounds more expensive than asphalt shingles. I love mine. But not cheap
 
Rough guesstimate based on 4500 sqft with a 6/12 pitch, you need about 162 bundles and about 30 rolls of felt. Add in drip edge, nails and incidentals and you are somewhere around 8-10K for materials. Labor is going to be area dependent, along with the quality of their cleanup. A crew that works hard to make sure they don't leave nails behind after cleanup is going to cost more than a crew that doesn't give a crap. Don't forget that dump fees are going to be pretty high as well no matter what.
 
We had our roof replaced last summer on our 17 year old, 2500 sq ft home with asphalt shingles. The cost was just over $18K but we, fortunately, only paid our insurance deductible. State Farm covered the hail damage. We now have a 40-year roof and, being in our 70s, will likely be the last one we need.
 
Just replaced mine, 18 years old, just over 4,200 SF, 2-story and steep (I think it's 10:12). combo of hip and gables, lots of valleys and ridges, around $33k...

I think it's just about the most idiotic thing I've done in a very long time to spend that kind of money on something that won't last past 18 years or so. Shingles are dumb. I'd go metal or tile if I'd thought the HOA would go for it. Either would probably look bad anyway on the style of our house, so oh well.
 
Way different location than yours, so numbers won't translate well. I think mine was about 12k, for half the size, low slope gable, very simple single ridge, reputable company and good product. The last one was over 25 yrs old, maybe 35. Up here I'd take shingles over metal in a heartbeat. But not all weather is like NY. We get a lot of wet, nowhere near as much sun, and no hurricanes up this far, knock on wood. So the construction requirements are a lot different and for good reasons.

All that said I wouldn't replace a roof that didn't need replacing if I could find a company to insure the house. Otherwise you're throwing money away to reduce risk to someone else.
 
Ugh. This is on my to-do list soon. Our roof is going on 30 years old now and (knock on every piece of wood that I can find) it isn't leaking. When we bought our house 13 years ago (roof was 17 years old at that point), the home inspector said "The roof is solid. It's old, but we get so many hail storms around here, something will blow through and you'll get insurance to pay for a new roof before you have any problems". Guess what we haven't had in this immediate area in the past 13 years? Hail - or even direct wind enough to blow shingles off. I know - that's a GOOD thing....unless you're not wanting to pay all out of pocket for a new roof.
 
CJones said:
Ugh. This is on my to-do list soon. Our roof is going on 30 years old now and (knock on every piece of wood that I can find) it isn't leaking. When we bought our house 13 years ago (roof was 17 years old at that point), the home inspector said "The roof is solid. It's old, but we get so many hail storms around here, something will blow through and you'll get insurance to pay for a new roof before you have any problems". Guess what we haven't had in this immediate area in the past 13 years? Hail - or even direct wind enough to blow shingles off. I know - that's a GOOD thing....unless you're not wanting to pay all out of pocket for a new roof.
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Other problem with something like that: the insurance company will likely pro-rate the roof. If it's near its life expectancy they might only cover a small part.

Ours is now 15-20 years old. We replaced it after a hail storm about 5 years after we replaced it because of another hailstorm. That last hail was a bad one, some houses on our street had holes punched in their garage doors. Our roofer did a quick inspection after I found a shingle tab in the yard after some of our high winds last fall and this spring. He did say it came from our roof. We have those 3-D style shingles, so there are lots of small tabs all over, and he said he could be up there for days trying to find where that one piece broke off. Other than that it's holding up. They also apply a point score based on flashing and vent damage. He got lots of pictures and I could see the hail dings from over the last 15 or so years, but they didn't add up to very much. So it's "endeavor to persevere" for me.
 
asicer said:
Is a standing seam roof an AMOC with the insurance company?
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It isn't with the insurers offering coverage in our area. We have a couple houses with standing seam roof; it's excellent but the insurance company doesn't care. Over 10 years old and they don't offer coverage. This is the sad result of roof replacements, many of which were likely questionable.
 
Our roof was 25 years old, shingles.
Had it replaced last fall on a 1000SF home and a 24X24 garage by a locally owned company that did a good job and picked up 99% on the nails. $8200.00
Did it in about 6 hours. Removed all old shingles.
 
FORANE said:
It isn't with the insurers offering coverage in our area. We have a couple houses with standing seam roof; it's excellent but the insurance company doesn't care. Over 10 years old and they don't offer coverage. This is the sad result of roof replacements, many of which were likely questionable.
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Wow. My insurer not only covered, but offered a very significant discount if I agreed to a rider that, if the roof is hit with hail but its function is not impinged, it is not a covered event. I'm totally fine with that. Interestingly, the standing seam metal roof was installed in replacement of a hail-damaged composition shingle roof.

Love my standing seam metal roof. Creaks and pops in the sun, but you get used to it.
 
My problem is apparently we can't buy 3-tab white shingles any more. I found one roofing place that had black ones. My Garage and a couple storage sheds are covered with Shasta White 3 tab shingles. Need to replace a small section on one of the storage sheds and probably need to do a small section on the Garage soon (Wind damaged). But I can't get a matching shingle to replace the damaged ones.

Brian
 
SCCutler said:
Wow. My insurer not only covered, but offered a very significant discount if I agreed to a rider that, if the roof is hit with hail but its function is not impinged, it is not a covered event. I'm totally fine with that. Interestingly, the standing seam metal roof was installed in replacement of a hail-damaged composition shingle roof.

Love my standing seam metal roof. Creaks and pops in the sun, but you get used to it.
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I should clarify, some of the companies offering coverage in our area are refusing coverage for dwelling with roof over 10 years old. I think there's only 3 insurers in the Gatlinburg market and 2 of the 3 have that policy. I would be happy signing a rider as you described also if it were available. Perhaps I should ask; it wasn't offered as an option by my agent.
 
SCCutler said:
Love my standing seam metal roof. Creaks and pops in the sun, but you get used to it.
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Mine does not creak or pop. Pac clad is local to me and being in the steel and aluminum trade, wrote it off. Had a customer give me some pointers and installed myself. Still was 9k in material alone. For ~1500 sq ft coverage.

Mine is a light gray to reflect rather than absorb the heat. I didn't put the snow guards on so the snow just sloughs off and piles up in front of the door. Acorns falling make some noise. Hail hasn't left a dent.
 
Bought my first house in 1979. It was a lakefront cottage in Lewisboro, NY. - sub- maybe even exurban NYC. While installing a wood-burning flue through, the roof, I counted seven… yes seven layers of asphalt shingles! I can’t imagine the weight!

And the structure itself had 2x4s as rafters, 24” on center. Scared the hell out of me. But the rafters were solid black walnut. House built in about 1918. No official records, just some old photos 1915-ish no house, and 1920-ish there’s the house.

The next winter we had a large slushy snowstorm, 18” of snow heavy as lead. I paced back and forth knowing something was wrong, but what was it?

Finally it dawned on me…. The normal creaks and groans from the house in normal times were completely gone! I concluded that the weight of about 18” of slush stuff on the roof had compressed everything up there down so that there was no room left for squeaks and groans to propagate.

So I had some dinner, poured myself three fingers of Scotch, and went to bed.

OP didn’t mention how many layers of shingles were already up there. Maybe local codes would permit one more?

Soon thereafter I married, had a little girl, and as soon as she took her first step, the house magically shrunk and we moved to a more kid friendly house in a more kid friendly neighborhood. It was surely fun while it lasted.

Last I heard, the house was still standing.

-Skip
 
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Skip Miller said:
I counted seven… yes seven layers of asphalt shingles! I can’t imagine the weight!
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I redid mine a few years ago, stripped off 5 layers and thought that was bad. Installed 3 tabs so I can go over the top next time. Did it now when I’m young enough to do it myself and two sets should last the rest of my life. But the house “feels” less stable when high winds come through, I think all the weight on it before really anchored it down (build with real dimension lumber, tight grained without defects).
 
I put a metal roof (not a seamed one) in NE PA. Put it right on the old roof (only one layer of shingles). I chose metal because one of the additions had such a low pitch that it was tar, rubber, or metal. Metal had the longest life and easiest to install and I could order a 27ft length so no seams... one glorious slab of metal.

In 2019 it cost me about $1800 total.
 
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