When considering major maintenance projects, all homeowners are confronted with a huge number of decisions they need to make, and nowhere is this truer than when it comes to replacing a roof.
The roof is one of the most essential components of a house, but it is also up there with plumbing and electricity as one of the parts of the home that homeowners know the least about. This is why, at Professional Roofers, we strive to help our customers fully understand the options that are available to them, and make an informed decision when it comes to how they should proceed with a re-roofing project.
As a Toronto roofing company with many years of experience in the business, we also understand that it isn’t just about which particular shingles a homeowner wants — across the GTA more and more homeowners are turning to alternatives like flat roofs or metal roofs, and many some homeowners are even roofing their houses with slate or cedar shakes.
So how can homeowners make smart decisions when it comes time to replace their roofs, and how can they ensure that the options they choose are a good match for their overall house design? Here are a few tips on everything from selecting the best roofing materials to ensuring that your new roof lasts as long as possible.
Roofing Materials: How to Make Smart Choices
Although we have workers who specialize in a variety of different roofing materials, including WestMan Steel roofing systems, as well as EPDM, modified bitumen, PVC membrane, and Spray Polyurethane Foam flat roofing materials, the biggest demand in Toronto roofing is still for good, old-fashioned asphalt shingles.
Asphalt is durable and easy-to-install, and it comes with lots of design options to give your home compelling curb appeal and a timeless look. The huge range of different asphalt shingle options available mean that homeowners can always find options that will match their home’s overall colour scheme, but this very abundance in styles can make it hard to know what shingles to select when replacing a roof, which is why we’ve provided a simple guide to shingle selection:
- 3-Tab Shingles: Once the most common type of shingle in the roofing industry, 3-tab shingles are cheap and easy to install, and their overlapping pattern of tabs ensures at least two layers of protection across the roof. While 3-tab shingles are still regularly installed on roofs across Canada and the United States, they tend to wear out more quickly, and usually aren’t good for more than fifteen to twenty years.
- Laminated Shingles: Laminated shingles have rapidly become the roofing material of choice over the past twenty years due to their more textured, resilient design. These shingles are designed to more closely mimic the look of high quality roofing materials like slate and wood shake, and they also extend the lifespan of your roof. If you are looking to install high quality shingles on your roof then laminated shingles are probably the option you should go with.
While these are the two standard styles of asphalt shingle, at Professional Roofers we work with a variety of different manufacturers, including IKO, BP, GAF-ELK, and CertainTeed to provide our customers with as many different options as possible.
Some of these manufacturers offer further treatments that enhance the quality and visual impact of their products, and which shingles we recommend for you will be based on your budget, the look you are going for, and the particular needs of home. It’s a good idea to do a bit of your own research into the different roofing materials and shingles available so you can make an informed decision about which style your prefer.
Installation Matters as Much as Materials
While it is obviously important to ensure that the materials you decide on are a good fit for your home and your budget, good shingles that are not installed properly will be of no help. Installing a new roof is complicated, which is why it is important to get the help of our roof repair Toronto experts when preparing to replace your roof.
Re-roofing a house isn’t just about replacing the old shingles and installing new ones: our roofing crews also take care of a host of other issues at the same time, including venting, flashing, and the installation of membranes to protect your eaves and the roof deck itself. If you want to make sure that your new roof is going to last for as long as possible, you need to make sure that the people taking care of the work understand everything that goes into a reliable roof system.
For example, one of the reasons why it is so important to make sure your attic is vented is because this directly impacts how well your roof will be able to deal with rising heat and moisture from the main living space of your home. An attic that is not properly vented will have problems with attic condensation that can quickly get out of hand, leading to issues like ice damming and eventually rotting the roof deck itself if the problem is allowed to continue unchecked.
There are several varieties of venting available, and while traditional gable vents were once the most popular choice, better designs and new advancements in roofing technology have made it possible to replace these more invasive and less efficient options with roof venting and ridge venting that removes heat as efficiently as possible.
Which style of venting is best is a frequent roof repair FAQ and while there are different schools of thought on this, and it depends to some extent on local conditions, ridge venting has been proven very effective at quickly channelling rising heat out of the attic and regulating the attic temperature. Coupled with effective attic insulation, ridge venting makes sure no external rain can get into the attic, while guaranteeing that moist, warm air from inside rises harmless into the atmosphere, and is a passive option that works even on windless days.
In addition to proper venting, Toronto roofers also need to be on the lookout for damage to flashing alongside dormer windows, valleys, chimneys, and plumbing stacks. Flashing plays an important role by providing extra protection, but over time flashing can tear, be punctured, and generally wear down. Flashing is extremely difficult to replace without replacing the shingles around it, and so an important question roof repair teams should be asking when they approach a roofing Toronto job is whether or not the flashing can last for another couple of decades.
Replacing flashing (especially flashing around chimneys) can be a difficult job, however, which is all the more reason to make sure that the roofers you hire are professionals with extensive experience in providing all manner of roofing solutions to customers in the GTA.
Roof Replacement Should be About Long-Term Solutions
Replacing a roof is a big job, and like all major home repairs, it comes with a significant price tag. It can be tempting to try to find the cheapest way to handle the installation of a new roof as a way of keeping overall costs down. But this is not a helpful way to approach the task. Not only is your roof an essential component of your home, but the quality of your roof will also play a significant role in determining the overall value of your house.
Most shoppers on the market for a new home don’t want to look at properties they know they are going to need to put tens of thousands of dollars into in the near future. Completely aside from the fact that it is not a good idea to cut corners on the part of your housekeeping the rain out, you’ll save yourself a lot of grief in the long run if you view your new roof as an investment rather than a maintenance expense. Paying a little more today can extend the life of your roof by years.
If you want to get the best roofing solutions for your home, give us a call today and find out more about how Professional Roofers can help you replace your old roof with a modern, effective roofing system that uses the best quality shingles to ensure give your home a sharp new look and maintain its structural integrity for years to come.
At Professional Roofers, we know just how challenging it can be to replace a roof; but we also know how to help you get the most out of the experience, ensuring that you end up with a roof that adds to your property value, imparts a sense of freshness and class to your home’s overall look, and, most importantly, keeps the elements at bay during even the heaviest storms. Get in touch today to get a quote!