Most of the difference between two roofing quotes is not the shingle. It is the work around it: the deck, the flashings, the underlayment and the attic. The pages here walk each service the way a careful owner would walk a quote.
What separates a complete quote from a cheap one
- Layers — how many does the bid assume, and what is the price if the tear-off finds another?
- Decking — priced per sheet, or absent? Nobody knows the count until the roof is open.
- Flashings — replaced, or reused and sealed? Reused metal is the usual reason a new roof leaks early.
- Underlayment — named by product, or just « felt »? In daily summer rain, the membrane is the real waterproofing.
- Ventilation — corrected, or reinstalled? A cooked attic ages the covering from below.
- 1 Ridge and exhaust — Where the attic is supposed to breathe out. Sized in 1975 on half this arc.
- 2 The shingle field — The part everyone looks at. The sun works it from above, the attic from below.
- 3 The valley — Every afternoon’s rain, funnelled into one seam.
- 4 Wall flashing — Where the garage roof meets the house. Rebuilt metal outlives the shingles; caulk does not.
- 5 The vent boot — A rubber collar on a faster clock than the roof around it. The arc’s most common leak.
- 6 Eaves, drip edge and soffit intake — The hardware salt reaches first, and the intake the attic breathes through.
The work
Why roofs struggle across this arc
The sun works every covering from above while the attic works it from below, the daily summer rain tests every seam, and the coastal half adds salt to the hardware. Distance from the water decides which of those does the damage at your address. Most of what gets reported here is predictable.
- Miles from the waterMiles from the water: how distance decides what fails
- The vent boot clockThe vent boot: the small part on a fast clock
- Aging in wavesRoofs that age in waves
- What the tear-off findsWhat the tear-off finds
- Cooked from both sidesCooked from both sides
- The junction problemThe junction problem: where roofs actually leak