Some Advantages of a Complete Roofing Tear off

The roof is probably the most neglected feature of a house as its rarely used. This results in more damage to the roof. Repairing the damage involves one of two solutions, re-covering or a complete tear down and rebuild. Re-roofing with a teardown is a costly project. It is however pretty effective at solving all roof related damage issues. The best thing to do is to do periodic maintenance and not get to a stage where either of these two solutions needs to be employed. However if it does get to the stage where you need to choose there are a few things in favor of a complete roofing tear off and re-roofing project that need to be considered.

Recovering a roof is an option but it is essentially a way to cover the underlying rot not fix it completely. You still have a gnawing disease in the roof that is going to only get worse with time and the re-covering just buys you time till a re-roofing project is feasible. Some clauses in building insurance actually specifically dictate that you cannot recover a roof. Some laws also come into the picture when considering a recovering project. The International Building Code claims that only two systems can be placed on a roof. The replacement can be forced by factors such as the need to replace portions of the deck or the insulation.

Then there are business considerations. If you are a hospital and have sensitive equipment for instance that sits under the roof that needs repair, you would need to factor in the business disruption. Also the equipment would need to be relocated and stowed away safely before the re-roofing can begin to prevent damage from dust and dirt.

Recovering is in itself not a simple project. It would involve a fair degree of scraping off of the existing roof to make way for the relaying of new surface. Conventionally around 25% of the roof surface gets scraped off in a recovering exercise. As the percentage approaches that number the cost of recovering starts approaching the cost of a complete roofing tear off. So then why cover when you can just replace? Another big consideration is that if it is water damage you are dealing with then the recovered roof could actually be worse, as the new covering could act as a vapour trap causing more harm.

There are a lot of benefits of a complete roofing tear off which should convince a home owner to go in for a complete re-roofing rather than a slap stick recovering. The most important is "how long do you want the house to last?”