How has roofing changed for your area of expertise over the years?

I've been involved with residential roofing for over 32 years now, since 1985 and many things have changed along the way. Some for the better and some not, depending on who you ask.

Concerning advancements in equipment, there has been tremendous improvement. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. When I first started out, we would pick up the supplies in a regular old single cab pick up truck and load them up on the roof by hand. If the roof was low enough, we would stand on top of the stacks and pass them up, holding the bundles up over our heads at times. If not, we would unload them onto the ground and carry them up the ladder on our shoulders. Compare that to ladder elevators, boom trucks, etc. :laugh:

After getting all the new shingles out of the truck and the tear off into it, we would get two or three guys to go to the landfill carrying a pick ax with them to jab into the pile and drag it out the back. That was some ridiculously hard work there my friend. Sometimes we would do work for someone who provided an old dump truck but these old trucks were pretty rough and no comparison to today's dump trailers.

And of course we nailed the roofs by hand, however we were all pretty fast at it. Some of us nailing on over 20 squares in a day at times. Somewhere around 15 was just a normal day. The invention of the nail gun has made it where any old Joe could get fast at laying shingles pretty quickly but I believe that this has led to a great reduction in the quality of the average roofing installation and also led to more do it your selfers adding even more so to the lower quality.

Concerning products, part of me wants to say the invention of laminate/dimensional shingles improved the quality as just about all roofs back then were 3-tab shingles but being in the repair business for many years now, I see tremendous problems with these dimensional shingles coming off steep slope roofs all the time. But a lot of that goes back to the reduction in the quality of the installation mentioned above. However fairly often, I see these type shingles coming apart and only the bottom half sliding off the roof as they are made in two pieces and just glued together. Today's low slope products are far and above the old rolled roofing that was commonly used back in the day. That one's a lock. Then there's all the different types of underlayment used today. I wouldn't argue with anyone saying synthetic, etc is much better than the old stuff, yet at the same time I personally don't think it matters much as they didn't even use any underlayment at all on some roofs back then.

Concerning labor, Again it depends on who you ask. I'm pretty sure most of today's Contractors will tell you that the immigrant labor used by most of them these days is much better than us ole Americans. And it may be as of today's date but back in the day, 4-5 of us good ole boy roofers could put a real arse whooping on a 35-40 square roof in a single day and that was using hammers instead of guns and our shoulders and legs instead of ladder elevators.

Concerning Sales and Marketing, the internet has made it where you can get a lot more information about your company out to a lot more people more easily than ever before and you can put up or take down your advertisements at any time instead of having to wait until the end of the year to change or cancel your yellow page ad. :laugh:

Concerning Insurance, Back in the day, if there was a hail or wind storm the insurance companies would just tell the homeowners to call around and get three quotes and then pick someone to do the roof. But today, if your work area is ever hit by enough hail to make it onto the hail swath reports subscribed to by all the storm chasers, 80-90 percent of your marketing efforts will be to no avail and you'll have to go around beating on doors promising the moon and stars if you expect to get much work out of it. Personally, I think this change has led to another reduction in quality.

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a life long roofer that was born the son of a life long roofer!

How have things changed over the years in your area of expertise?

Most of the homes I work on already have the proper intake but often have poor exhaust. Everyone seems to think ridge vent is the bomb but on these McMansion style homes with huge 20-30 ft. high attics, steep roofs, very few top ridges and not much length ridge vent does not even begin to ventilate properly. The power fans are the only real solution in these cases and they typically don't last any longer than 5-10 years even with adequate intake air. Around that time either the motors or thermostats go bad. I just replace the entire units rather than swap parts in and out. When you work in a Metro Area where 1.5 million people live there are a lot of power fans going out continuously and believe me, I have "educated" for so many years that I feel like I should be able to retire any time now with a full college professor's benefit package. :laugh:

That is funny. In Texas where it is hot as hell, they really should be educated about the importance of ventilation. If those power fans are running and trying to draw out the hot air and there is not enough intake, then they are pulling out the air conditioned air from the inside of the house too. If they are trying so hard that they burn up the motors, they are generating a lot of heat in and of themselves. It has to be our job to educate the people about these things. That education has to come in the way of questions that they answer themselves so they can see then wisdom of what we are saying. I guess you can't fix Stupid with some people though. I just walk away.

Natty, your a trip. It's his house and his money. He knew what he wanted before he called. I can only advise a client. I can't forcefully make them do anything. He has been living in the home since it was first built in 1982 with only 4 soffit vents. Today it has 16. Four times the intake it had before. It might not be the way you would like to have done it but it's better than its ever been in over 35 years.This is an older gentlemen pretty set in his ways. He just wanted the ridge vent. I had to talk him into allowing me to install the extra soffit vents because I knew the house needed more intake. The good news is that the continuous soffit venting can still be installed at any time in the future. The roof work is complete and would not have to be changed.

I removed the old ridge caps, cut out the shingles and felt with a hook blade down to the bare wood and then cut the wood out with a circular saw. Your right, it's quite a chore and I charged accordingly. I guess that's why he didn't wanna spend more for continuous soffit venting. :huh:

PS: Almost nobody around here wants to pay anything at all for added intake. Most of the time I'm just replacing power fans that burned out with new units. Sometimes I replace wind turbines with power fans. The ridge vent job was a rare one. ( Taking out power fans to install ridge vent ) I did one recently where the client wanted to add two power fans because the ridge vents were not doing the job. ( hip roof with a large high attic only had about 20 ft. of ridge vent ) He would not pay me to remove the ridge vents, install some new decking and cap over. Instead he informed me that he would be filling the cut out up with spray foam from inside the attic. In these cases, I just do what they are paying me to do. The only other choice would be to decline the work and I usually don't have that luxury.

PS: You quoted the amount of intake required for power fans. Those were taken out and ridge vent installed! Also the amount of intake air needed for a power fan depends on the CFM rating of the fan.

Old School Said: This is really only necessary on the houses built before they started to make the energy heels on the trusses. .

Chuck Said: So yes improving the intake and making the exhaust maintenance free was the goal.

PS: This house also has a small gap between the plywood and fascia with the top of the fascia being slightly lower down than the underside of the plywood so that is more intake in addition to the soffit venting. There is no drip edge on the home. And no I didnt roof it. :dry:

My point was you could not be happy with a job where the numbers did not add up for a 'proper' installation. And since power fans require at least 600in2 intake each, even with the no drip edge gap, there was not enough intake. Nevertheless, another question- how did you install the ridge vents? Did you remove the old ridge and top course then cut the slit and repair the shingles, or did you just cut through the whole shebang nails and all with a special blade?

Natty, we don't do that on all of them, but a lot of them. I see people putting on the "smart vents" on top of the roof at the eave and I have to laugh. It looks goofy and why would you install a hole slot right where the ice is going to build. I know the "formulas" too, but the best formula is to open it completely up and let the air flow. Make that attic like a "Pavilion" so that the air can flow here ever it wants. You will absolutely eliminate any ice buildup and the AC costs will drop in the summer too. The shingles last longer, and so does the framing. Yes it costs more, but if a person is going to stay in the house for more than 6 years, it will pay for itself.

This is really only necessary on the houses built before they started to make the energy heels on the trusses. Those let the air flow t the soffit. anything else just doesn't have enough space for the ventilation at the plate. It is better to have air flow than insulation on the plate. It also makes a difference in that we are not trying to do a lot of work. I only have a couple of men working with me and I don't advertise, I am not in the book and everything is referral. When you have been in a town as long as we have, that works. I can afford to turn away work if they won't do it my way. Not bragging but it works for me.

Natty, if I had installed less ridge vents thereby making your formula work out would you approve? ( the customer wanted them end to end ) I cut in new soffit vents 6 feet apart which is standard in these parts. They were put everywhere there was a place to do so. It would look odd to install them any closer together. ( and be the only house around like that ) Also this customer ( like most ) was on a limited budget for the project and did not want continuous soffit venting nor did he want to pay for it. He felt the extra soffit vents I put in were excessive but I was able to convince him to do it. He called me complaining of having to replace those two attic fans multiple times over the years stating that he regretted not having them taken out and ridge vents installed when the roof was redone a few years ago and requesting that it be done now. So yes improving the intake and making the exhaust maintenance free was the goal.

PS: This house also has a small gap between the plywood and fascia with the top of the fascia being slightly lower down than the underside of the plywood so that is more intake in addition to the soffit venting. There is no drip edge on the home. And no I didn't roof it. :dry:

Old School Said: we tear out the old soffits, wood aluminum whatever they have in there and throw them out. .

Chuck Said: He called me to improve the ventilation and make it maintenance free which is what I did. :

I'm well aware of the formula and I'm sure we could go on forever due to the nature of ventilation. Each house is unique unto itself and the general formula does not always apply exactly as specified. OS, I do always check to see if the vents are blocked with insulation. I've found that to rarely be the case around here and was not the case on the above mentioned project.

The two fans on the house were constantly having too much pressure on them due to lack of intake, the motors kept burning out and the customer finally got tired of replacing them. He called me to improve the ventilation and make it maintenance free which is what I did. Both of us are very satisfied with the results. The house itself let out a sigh of relief! lol :laugh:

Chuck, all of you guys! You are missing the mark here. On those older homes, I can guarantee you that they added insulation after the house was built. they have the soffits plugged up. I can't for the life of me understand peoples thinking about just adding some soffit vents. First, you have to go up into the attic and look down towards the soffit. If there is no light coming in, no air is coming in either. I don't care if you install 50 vents on each side. you are wasting your time. Even if you see vented aluminum soffit on the outside it means nothing unless they have opened it up when it was installed. we tear out the old soffits, wood aluminum whatever they have in there and throw them out. then we open up a channel into the attic. It can be manually bu pushing the insulation back and installing proper vents between each rafter to even taking a back pack blower and inserting it into the cavity between the rafters and blowing the insulation back into the attic. Then we install a FULLY vented aluminum soffit system and THEN you can install a ridge vent and it will do the job. Just remember, nothing in = nothing out.

Chuck Said:

Natty, I did a job last week where I removed two attic fans from a ranch style home built in the 80s and installed 110 ft. of ridge vents. The house only had 4 soffit vents. Two on front and two on back. lol The longest two soffits, right side and left side had none at all. I added 12 more. 6 on each side.

At 18 sq. inch/ft X 110 ft. = 1980 sq. inches up top. If the soffit vent is 16"x8", it is rated 56 sq.in. net free ventilation. That means you would need at least 35 soffit vents just to equal the top vents. So, your ventilation job is sadly underperforming.

I have found that cutting in ridge vent on a house already roofed is way too frustrating and too much work to be cost effective. The soffit vents are hard enough to cut in, but they need to be there regardless.

twill59 Said: Absolutely natty. You being sarcastic?

I do a lot of ventilation work this time of year. Here in the south it's all about the heat. I actually have a separate marketing campaign that I only use seasonally beginning around the first of May and ending by the end of September.

The strongest type of roof mounted ventilation seems to be the power fans. They work best in the southern climate on homes with large/high attics. Ridge vent is popular but it is not the best solution unless it's like a ranch style home with a low attic space. Then it works fine. I don't get many requests for wind turbines anymore but when I do, I make sure to use the larger 14 inch variety rather than the cheap 12 inch ones because they do not function/spin properly.

Natty, I did a job last week where I removed two attic fans from a ranch style home built in the 80's and installed 110 ft. of ridge vents. The house only had 4 soffit vents. Two on front and two on back. lol The longest two soffits, right side and left side had none at all. I added 12 more. 6 on each side.

Ventilation is so important, and almost every house built before the mid 80's needs attention at the soffit area. Most are completely plugged up with insulation. Not Good!!At least with the new truss systems and the energy heels, the air is able to move from the soffit into the attic space. The older housing stock will eventually dissappear, but that is years into the future.

Another thing is the chimneys on the houses. I run into it all the time where someone will get the bright idea of venting a gas log fireplace into the existing flue without sizing it down. # years later, the masonry chimney above the roof is all in pieces and the brick is all spalled off and they don't 'connect" the dots to know why.