A brick ranch in Waynesville, Ohio, with a roof that had already been repaired once and was failing again. A storm finished the argument. The homeowners filed a claim, we documented what the storm and the earlier patch job had left behind, and our roofing crew took the whole roof down to the rafters: full re-deck, Rhino U20 synthetic underlayment, new flue flashing and GAF Timberline HDZ in Pewter Gray over all of it.
The roof before
From the street it was an ordinary tired roof, a gray three-tab with the shadow lines gone and the color washed out. Up close it was two roofs. Somebody had been on it before us, and the work they left behind is the reason this story is worth telling.
An earlier repair by someone else had set a patch of darker shingles into the storm-torn area and troweled roof cement around the flue flashing. Neither is a repair. A patch that does not match tells you the shingle is no longer made, which means the roof is past repairing. Cement over flashing seals for a season and then cracks, and the leak comes back at the one place on the roof that also gets hot. When the next storm came through, the roof had nothing left to give.
The claim
The homeowners filed a storm damage claim. Our part was the inspection and the file: photographs of the torn and lifted shingles, the mismatched patch, the cemented flashing and the deck where it showed, with a written scope to match. That went to the adjuster with the claim, and the claim was approved for a full replacement. A roof that has already been patched once and torn again is not a repair candidate, and a complete file makes that plain without an argument.
Tear-off and a full re-deck
The crew stripped the old shingles and felt to the deck, and then kept going. The old sheathing came off too, and new sheathing went down across every slope of the house and garage. A full re-deck is not the default on every roof, but under a roof that has been patched and cemented, the deck is a guess. We would rather nail thirty years of shingle to wood we put there ourselves.
Tarps went down along the house before the first shingle came off, because a ranch with a garage under the same roof drops debris on the driveway, the walk and the beds at the same time. The old roof went onto the tarps and then into the trailer, and the new deck went down slope by slope right behind the tear-off.
Rhino U20 underlayment and the flue
Over the new deck went Rhino U20, a synthetic underlayment that replaces the old asphalt felt. It is the gray sheet with the rhino printed on it in the photographs. Synthetic underlayment does not tear when a boot catches it, does not wrinkle in the sun, and does not soak through if a shower comes before the shingles do. It also lies flat, so the shingles above it lie flat too.
The flue got what it should have had the first time: new flashing, fitted to the pipe and lapped into the underlayment and the shingles around it, with no cement doing a job that metal is supposed to do. Flashing seals to the roof around it. When the roof changes, the flashing changes with it, and a flue is the one penetration on a roof that also runs hot, which is why a smear of cement never lasts there.
GAF Timberline HDZ in Pewter Gray
The shingle is GAF Timberline HDZ in Pewter Gray, a mid-gray architectural shingle with enough depth in the color to read as slate against red brick. GAF publishes a 130 mph wind warranty on Timberline HDZ, its LayerLock strip widens the nailing target across each shingle, and GAF's time-release algae-fighting treatment is its answer to the streaking that darkens so many Ohio roofs. This roof had been patched with a shingle nobody could match. It now has one that will be made for a long time.
The result
One roof, one shingle, one color, from the garage to the back gable. The mismatched patch is gone, the cemented flue is a memory, and under the Pewter Gray is a deck we laid ourselves, a synthetic underlayment and flashing that was fitted rather than smeared. From straight above it is a single clean plane where there used to be a roof that told on itself.
Questions we get about roofs that were repaired before
The last roofer patched it. Why can't you?
Sometimes we can. But a patch only works when the same shingle is still made and the roof around it is sound. When the patch on your roof is a different color, that tells you the shingle is discontinued, and when the patch has already torn, the roof around it is done. At that point a second patch is money spent twice.
Is roof cement around a pipe a real repair?
No. Roof cement is for sealing a nail head or a small seam, not for doing the job of flashing. Around a flue it bakes, cracks and lets water back in within a few seasons, and the crack is usually hidden under the smear. Flashing is metal fitted to the pipe and lapped into the roof. That is the repair.
Why re-deck the whole roof?
Because a roof that has been patched and cemented may have been letting water past both for years, and the sheets that look fine from above may not be. On this house we chose to replace all of it rather than guess, so the new shingles are fastened to wood we know.
Does a storm claim cover a roof that was already patched?
A claim covers storm damage, and a previous patch does not undo that. What it does is make the documentation matter more, because the adjuster needs to see what the storm did as distinct from what was already wrong. We photograph both and write both up, and the file speaks for itself.
Roof patched once and leaking again?
We will inspect it, tell you whether the shingle can still be matched, and if a storm is involved, build the file the claim needs. Our roofing and exteriors page covers replacement, repair and storm damage, and this Franklin roof replacement is another storm claim on a brick ranch a few miles down the road.
Book a free estimate or call (937) 888-WORK. Let's Build Something Limitless.
