5 Reasons Not to Have a New Roof Installed Over an Old Roof

So you need a new roof and want to decide whether or not to attempt to save a little money with the brand new roof installed over an existing layer of roofing. This technique is quite common in many locations and many NYC roofing contractors do not find any problem with this method and don't have any problem trying to sell homeowners onto a layover or go-over because this procedure is called. They're wrong.

5 Best Reasons A Lay-Over Or Go-Over Can Be A Bad Idea When Re-Roofing

1.) Areas that have or had escapes can not always be addressed properly

There's a good chance your old New York roofing had any problem areas including potential leak spots, whether you discovered them or not. Without ripping off the old roof and properly identifying these types of trouble spots and determining where the flow was coming from and traveling to it is impossible to tell what aspects of your New York roofer might need some special care.

2.) Any rotted wood beneath the existing roofing will only get worse

There might be places which have rotted wood hiding under the old roofing. These rotted areas need to be identified and replaced before a brand new commercial roofing NYC is installed. Obviously, if your roofing contractor is just doing a layover roofing installation afterward these rotted areas will remain covered up and only get worse as the years move on. Additionally, the nails holding the shingles down in regions with rotted wood can't properly do their job and you have a much greater risk of shingles blowing off in these areas.

3.) Eaves, rakes, and sidewalks require special treatment

This is a major one. The eaves, rakes, and valleys of your house need special attention when your home's roofers New Yorkis being installed. This is especially important in colder climates like Massachusetts, where we are located. In the winter time the eaves of your home are under assault by Mother Nature, whether it's by way of ice dams, snow build up, or only the constant freezing and thawing that happens during the winter season. When a new roofers New York is properly installed the roofing company NYC needs to place new aluminum drip-edge around the whole perimeter of your roof.

They will need to employ a three-foot wide section of water & ice barrier around the perimeter as well as in any valleys in your roofers New York. Then they can begin to install the new roofing. Without tearing off the original roofing there isn't any way to correctly set up the new drip-edge or ice & water barrier. On a layover sort of roofing install, the roofing contractor is relying upon the present products on the home's roofers New York continue to be up to level and be able to take care of the winter conditions. All too often the old goods fall short whether it was because they've outlived their lifetime, were sub-par, to begin with, or maybe they were never there to start with (all too often the latter is the case with water & ice barrier).

4.) Extra roofing weight is not any good for older rafters

Among the more obvious difficulties with a layover, roofers New York will be the added burden of the extra layer of shingles. On most newer houses this is not an issue, however, many older houses have rafters that are considered undersized by today's framing criteria. It is not uncommon to see 2×6 rafter systems on a number of these houses. Now in most situations, a 2×6 rafter is undersized, to begin with and you definitely don't want to be adding the weight of a new roofing coating on top of a classic roofing coating to those already undersized rafter systems. With newer roofs with 2×10, 2×12, engineered trusses, etc. the weight is not always as much of a problem.

5.) Shorter roof life expectancy

Most accountable roofing contractors agree a layover roofing contractors NYC will decrease the new roof's life by about 25\%. This fact alone means that any money you might have saved by doing a layover, instead of some tear-off and new commercial roofing NYC setup, was just a brief term savings. In addition, you now have two layers of roofing which Need to be removed next time your commercial roofing NYC is done and that will also add more cost to the job

Tear-Off Then Re-Roof Is Always Superior

Well, I just gave you 5 great reasons to tear off your old roofing contractor NYC and install your roof. Yes, it can be cheaper in the brief term to perform a do-over on your old roof, but, in the long run, it will cost you more. We never suggest this technique to our customers. We always recommend completely tearing off the old roofing companies NYC, repairing any underlying issues, then installing a fresh, beautiful new roof which will outlast any layover roof, as well as better, protect our customers' homes.