Knowing Which Contractors To Work With

Roofing replacement sounds like a fairly drastic undertaking. It often ends up being the simplest solution. You may want to replace your house's roof if you're facing one of these situations. 

Heavy Layering

One of the most common reasons for a roof replacement project is that the roof has too many layers of shingles on it. Different building codes have different numbers of permissible layers. Generally, regions in snowy climates have rules that require you to strip and replace the materials after only adding a couple of additional layers. The goal is to prevent the combined weight of the snow, ice, and roofing materials from potentially collapsing the structure.

Even if you live somewhere nice and warm, though, there comes a point where the roof will have too many layers. Bear in mind that each layer can add thousands of pounds of weight to the roof.

Extensive Damage

Sometimes the damage to a roof is significant enough that repair work is either impossible or inadvisable. If storm damage caused by the fall of a large tree leaves behind a large and jagged hole, for example, a contractor might be able to repair that. However, it may leave you with more peace of mind to know the company stripped the roof down and put in entirely new materials. Especially if the roof is old and close to replacement, it's hard to justify repairs when you can do a more thorough job.

Age

Depending on the type of materials used on a roof, you might only get a couple of decades of use out of them. If the materials are at or past the manufacturer's expected lifetime for them, roof replacement may be presumptive. Notably, you can't layer some materials like wood or slate shingles so you'll have to do roof replacement once they've hit the end of their life.

Exterior Remodeling

Changing the look of a house's outside often requires changing the roof. A home's roof is one of its most visible features. Particularly if the house has a complex roof with many peaks and valleys, people will notice it. For remodeling reasons, a roofing replacement may be necessary to keep the house visually consistent.

Decay

Nothing scares roofers more than decaying roofs. A roof doesn't have to be old to experience rot under the right conditions. Even the loss of a few critical shingles during a storm can let water in and cause the wood to decompose. If a roof is decaying, the prudent move is almost always to replace it with fresh materials.

Contact a local roof replacement service to learn more.