Reroofing problem

Stan in Oly, WA

Well-known Member
I'm getting bids on reroofing a tiny (500 sq. ft.) rental house I own in a town where real estate values are low. I'm tired of being a landlord and plan to sell the house as soon as possible. Not putting on a new roof is not really an option, for a couple of reasons I won't go into here.

The first two roofers to get back to me were both old guys, like me---it was immediately obvious they both had common sense and lots of experience. They both told me that the shiplap sheathing is brittle and is not going to hold any type of fasteners very well (I specified that I wanted the new roof installed with hot dipped galvanized nails). The first one told me that he can not in good conscience do the roof except to tear off the existing composition roofing and sheathe over the shiplap with 1/2" CDX. There were a number of other things he would do, so there was no doubt that it would be a first class job---but it would cost $10,000, which might turn out to be as much as 15% of the FMV of the house. The other roofer would do a roofover, but it's clear that it would result in a case of turning future problems over to whoever buys the house---which is not what I want to do.

I haven't been able to think of a way to achieve a good outcome in this situation. I welcome any suggestions.

Stan
 
Stan, it might be obvious, if the roof deck material, (rafters good?) is compromised, it needs to be removed, replaced, and a new roof installed. its hard to figure getting around that. Neighbor across the lane had to overlay 5/8" cdx over an existing 1/2" early 60's era plywood, + new shingles, was about $10K hired out. done in 2 days, single level ranch kind of style, with attached garage. 3 bedroom, a living room and kitchen dining area, I forget how many square, typical size house of the early 60's.

You can't value engineer defective as-built conditions, maybe an overlay will suffice, but if its too far gone, personally, I'd want it out. 500 S.F./ 32 S.F. per sheet = 15 sheets plus 20% waste is what you are looking at.

The other thing is, you don't want a compromised roof deck for obvious safety reasons, + the roof and exterior building envelope are the most important components any building has, let those go you know what happens I am sure LOL !

The only other way to reduce costs, is do this in house, side job for someone competent, or get a gang together, pay em fair, get the materials yourself and join in the fun, I've done it on residential work many times and even commercial sites when in a jam, both are always done to meet specifications or what is needed, no shortcuts and the labor is a cost savings. A GC will mark everything up, then try for 20% or better on the lump sum.
 
Stan, you need to get more bids, the guy that wants 10 grand must want to retire now. From a retired builder without seeing it might take 7 square of shingles @80.00 = $560.00, 22 1/2" CDX @22.00 = $484.00 and felt paper and misc. supplies $100.00. for a total material cost of about $1044.00 give or take and about 2 days labor for 3 men and dump or clean up cost. Prices based on Home Depot.
 
just got a quote for 22 square ranch style roof, for steel roofing, remove one layer of shingles and install, was almost $35,000. will pass on that one.
 
Ten grand seems a bit steep. 500 sq ft house, so that's only 7 or 8 squares. I hate roofing, but if it was mine I'd do it myself. The worst part is the tearoff, and you can contract that out. See if you can get a bid for just the tearoff from a contract that only does tearoffs.

1/2" CDX sheathing will make a good roof, but going over the existing shiplap you could get by with 7/16" OSB. Not only is it cheaper, it's lighter and easier to handle.

I don't think any contractor will want to use hot-dipped galvanized nails. As far as I know, coil roofing nails are only available electro-galvanized, so using hot-dipped nails means hand-nailing. (The 10K bid may have reflected the additional labor of hand-nailing.)

I would suggest using architectural shingles rather than three-tab. The price differential isn't that much anymore, and contractors prefer the architectural shingles. They're easier to install and more forgiving of sloppy installation than are three-tabs.
 
Seems if you went metal all you would have to do is remove the shingles (even that may be optional), lathe across the rafters with 2x4s, nailed into the rafters and not the decking, and put down your metal on the lathe. Down and dirty, but effective.
 
Stan,
My roofer charged me $850 labor to do a re-roof, not peal off, on a 14 sq roof. He also cut in 4 new air vents. He did it by himself and was done by noon.

If the roof has leaked for a long time, then you may need a peal off and a new deck.

10K sounds high. You selling value will not be increased by the cost of putting a new roof on. Never do a re-roof is you already have 2 layers. Try selling house with old roof and give buyer $100-120 per square off selling price. That way he can save money if he does the job himself.
 
Hi Billy;

The house is a bit bigger than 500 sq. ft., maybe 550, but I only mentioned the size in relation to the low market value. The actual roof extends over the attached garage, but I didn't include the garage as living space. I measured the roof as 10+ squares, but the roofer who looked at it yesterday said it was 15. I can't disagree because I don't know how to allow for the surprisingly large amount of gables, ridges, and valleys. If I have to cut off half a shingle at a valley, I'll probably hold onto the remainder and try to use it somewhere else, but I suppose that's not time efficient, so roofing contractors probably toss the scrap and move on. Also, I've never used ridge shingles, I always cut 3-tab shingles into thirds, and the contractor said he does that too, but I don't know how much roofing to add for that.

Anyway, I imagine it would take less than 1500 sq. ft. of 1/2" CDX to sheathe the roof, but certainly more than the M/L 11 squares I measured. So at 3 sheets a square that would probably be at least 35.

After I posted my original question another bid came in by email. He would charge $4700 to tear off the old roof (and haul away) and go over the existing sheathing with 30 year comp, or $3600 to just go over the existing roof. So maybe I've got some roofing in my near future, whether I want to do it or not.

Stan
 
George;

Good advice. Thanks.

Installing 4 new vents and laying down 1400 feet of roofing in less than 8 hours is an amazing amount of work, even under the most favorable conditions (ideal slope for working, two long planes of roofing on a gable roofed house without obstructions, gables, valleys, chimneys, etc.) I'm guessing the roofing was already on the roof, whether by previous delivery or hauling. Did he hammer it or use a nailer? The problem with working alone is that roofing, even when you've got a clear field of it to do, is nothing but a series of interruptions. I've never seen any information on this, but my guess is that two roofers working together can do 3 to 5 times as much as a person working alone. One person does almost nothing except to lay down shingles and the other just nails. Of course, people can be amazing. I watched a YouTube video of the Masonry Olympics in Las Vegas. Guys were laying 16" x 16" concrete blocks maybe 50 times faster than I would be able to. And their walls were straight and true. Freaks.

Stan
 
Gabled roof, 5/12. Used nailer and carried the shingles up a ladder. He used starter shingles and cut roof caps. This guy is a get er done guy.
 
Hi Mark;

I agree with everything you say, but see my reply to Billy NY below for my explanation of how the size of the roof was not accurately expressed by my statement of the size of the living space of the house. I could be wrong, but I don't think you normally include the area of an attached garage in stating the area of a house. Not that it really changes anything in my situation. The roof is the roof and I've got to deal with it, one way or another.

Stan
 
Jerry;

I like metal roofs, and I will look into it. The main problem might be that although the house is in kind of a run down neighborhood, metal roofs haven't started appearing there yet. About all this house has going for it is that it's pretty darn cute. I would hate to do something that changed that.

Stan
 
Stan, On the ridge cap figure it this way. A bundle of three tab shingles has 27 shingles in it . Times three per shingle is 81 pieces. We use a 5 inch exposure here , so that would be 405 inches of ridge. 81 x 5 =405. take the 405 and divide by 12 to get 33.75 feet of ridge cap coverage.
 
Couple of points here:

Re-roofing to sell it to someone else should have you thinking about keeping costs down. Metal roofing is a premium choice that I doubt will bring any return on. I realize that you are trying to do the right thing with a new roof but the metal option sounds like it's what you want and not what you need. Your rental property is a business and the roof should be treated as such too. Not trying to be critical here.

$10K sounds like a rip off. I had a full tear off done on my 2-story home 1.5 years ago. It took 22 squares of shingles and we installed a new $400.00 skylight. The entire job with some decking repairs was $8,100. Local highly rated company did the job and we used premium Dow Corning lifetime shingles. CDX charge was $44.00/sheet and they replaced 5 sheets. Local code requires ice and water shield 9 feet up from the edge which was done as well.

I would shop for a reputable roofer that will guarantee the work. I have had quite a bit of experience with roofers at our manufacturing plant and have fired a few. Lots of these guys are people who can't hold a job doing anything else and they are unreliable. Took me a while to find someone that we could rely on. They aren't the cheapest but I think we are getting what we pay for.

Best of luck.
 
I think that a tear off and re-sheathing is a prudent choice on a compromised roof.

I would specify that, and get 3 bids.
 
Stan- call The Roof Doctor out of Centralia. They did my 2500 sq. ft. house, ranch style with hips at both ends, tear off 2 layers of old shingles, 11 sheets of plywood to replace damaged sections, $12,000 out the door. 10 guys, did it in one day, you couldn't tell they had been there.
 
Mike;

I'm waiting to get a bid from the Roof Doctor on Hwy 101 between Taylor Town and Shelton. I don't know whether they are different branches of a parent company, or individual franchise owners. When I called the 427 prefix (Mason County) phone number and asked if I should use the email address that was in the Yellow Pages ad, the secretary told me to use a different one she gave me.

I've had some misgivings about Roof Doctor for a long time in any case. A contractor I knew who worked in the Aberdeen---Hoquiam area years ago said that the Roof Doctor there had called L&I on another company for safety violations they had observed while a roofing job was in progress. Now, maybe their motivation was 100% worker safety, and maybe it wasn't, but I never felt the same way about them after hearing that.

Stan
 
Its sounds like some numbers are off here and there. We need to know how many squares you're talking about. Shingles cost about $50 - $70 per square depending on what you get and where. I've had roofers do roofs for $35 to $60 per square for tear off and re-shingling. Decking repair is $35 per sheet. So if you're talking about 10 squares, on the extreme of what you say your house size is, for shingles and labor, you'd only be talking $1,300 for 10 squares. If a contractor is managing it, I'd expect it to be around $2.600. You probably should go back and look at what has been quoted and re-evaluate if you're getting a good deal or not.
 

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