What problems do you usually find once you tear off the old roof?

Summary:

Jeremiah stresses that a thorough evaluation happens before anything is removed, so pricing offered to the homeowner is accurate from the start. That includes looking in the attic space to determine plywood needs, checking for multiple layers, and checking for safety issues before quoting. He recounts a Lake Stevens job where he performed thorough attic and exterior evaluations and, lifting the shingles at the leading edge, counted a single layer. During tear-off the crew found a second layer, concealed because the previous installer had done a cutback on the original roof and installed all the necessary flashing and ice and water shield over a thin three-tab shingle. He communicated the discovery to the homeowner immediately, and because a specific weather window had to be met, he showed up and helped tear off personally. He notes plywood always looks better from the attic than from the top, and that his response to surprises is stopping production and communicating.

Answer:

Well, there's one situation that comes to mind. So the problems that you'll find when it comes to tearing off a roof, hopefully, and we do this, we do a thorough evaluation before we ever start removing anything, because we want to be thorough with the pricing that we're offering to the homeowner. The big thing is looking in the attic space, determining how much plywood is going to be needed so we can be upfront with that pricing from the very beginning. Additional things are, when we're looking at the roof, we're checking for multiple layers, we're checking for safety issues, we're checking for all those variables before we even give a quote. A fun story that I've dealt with here in Lake Stevens is we go out to the homeowner's house, we do a thorough attic evaluation, we do a thorough exterior evaluation. There was flashing, valley flashing, there was drip edge metal, starter metal, all used. And when I lift the shingles up at the very leading edge, I counted one singular layer. However, when we started removing the roof, we noticed that there was a second layer. And it's because when they did the second layer, they did a very good job of concealing the fact that there was a second layer. They did a cutback on the original roof and they installed all the necessary flashing and ice and water shield, so it was very hard to determine. A very thin roof was used underneath it called a three-tab shingle. Very hard for us to determine. So the day they're removing the roof, my crew lead sends me a picture showing that there was a second layer. How I was able to deal with this is obviously communicate to the homeowner, hey, there's a second layer, shouldn't be too big of a difference in the cost, but we were able to get it done. I actually showed up and helped them tear off, because we had a very specific weather window that we had to meet, and when there are two layers that could add a lot to it. Fun story, but needless to say, a lot of the variability when it comes to roof replacement, what could add to the cost, plywood is a big factor of it. Plywood looks a lot better in the attic space than it does from the top of the roof. So sometimes what I see from inside the attic space, as we remove the shingles, it looks a lot worse from the top side. And the biggest thing when we deal with those situations is stopping production, communicating with the homeowners so they're well aware of what's going on, and making sure they understand the necessary steps to get through this.