4 Things To Know When Considering Roof Replacement Or Repair
Patriots vs Colts; Toll House cookies vs Boston Cream Pie. Life is all about choices, and homeowners in southeastern Massachusetts have one more: roof replacement vs repair. Of course you pick the Pats, but how can you know what to do with your home’s roof?
Four Factors
When trying to decide between roof replacement vs repair, you have four major factors to consider, even before you contact a nearby residential roofing contractor for pricing, options, samples, and a site visit.
The four factors are always unique to your roof, so avoid the influence of neighbors, extended family, or friends. Your roof is not their roof.
Before we dig in deep, though, a word of caution: never venture out onto your roof, whether you have a single-story ranch or a prototype New England saltbox. Roofs are dangerous, so leave the hands-on inspection to your roofer. Stay on the ground!
Four factors to consider when deciding if you are better off replacing your home’s roof or paying less for roof repair:
- Your roof’s age — older New England roofs are roofs ready to fail; the northeast’s tough climate ages roofs of all types faster than other, milder climates, so a shingle roof near 20 years of age is ready for full roof replacement, and flat roofing (over a porch, addition, or entryway) should be replaced every 10 to 15 years in our area
- Local weather — your property is a microclimate, with homes facing the Atlantic Ocean inevitably needing roof replacement sooner than those facing away from nature’s blasts; a wooded lot may offer protection against winds that a more open lot does not
- Your roof’s materials — Shingles come in several price lines, with economical three-tab shingles designed for fast, inexpensive installation but not designed to last as long as architectural shingles; flat roofing materials vary widely in quality; only your roofer can provide an accurate evaluation of the quality of your current roof’s materials
- Quality installation — If your current roof was slapped down by a day crew brought in from the parking lot of a big-box home improvement store by a contractor who cannot tell the difference between drip edge and flashing, your roof probably needs replacing; poor installation shortens a roof’s lifespan more than weather, age, or other factors