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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Top Ten Most Important Parts of a Roof

You might be wondering what are the most important aspects of a roof and the roof replacement process.

The first step in the reroof process is selecting a roofing contractor, a roofing manufacturer, and a system. This will determine the longevity of the roof, the serviceable time of a roofing material, your utility costs, influences overall family respiratory health, related home maintenance issues like carpentry, painting, and HVAC repairs. 

Numero dos for roofs is right where the roof begins, the soffit vent. These little intake vents, working in conjunction with their siblings on the outtake, make everything last longer: the roof itself, the paint (the original reason for soffit venting was to keep paint on the home. The paint companies up north invented ventilation in the 1920's), the insulation, the decking, your life (better health).

Third comes the nexus of the deck protection or felt and the metal edge and starter. I mention these three items as one because they are like a mini system within the bigger system. You don't mesh these three correctly and your paint and eave lumber and siding rot away. 

The forth is the flashing and valley material. This is composed of a flashing and accompanying leak protector enhancements that keep the roof penetrations from leaking.

Fifth is nail selection and placement. This issue has grown so much that the manufacturers have even put a pretty line for the roofer to follow for nail placement. Most have never even noticed. Some even think it is a maximum exposure line, which if used as such, makes for a failed roof. Some have gone so far as to state that pneumatic nails are better than staples and that is flat wrong. Don't get me wrong here because I believe staples are terrible. It's just that nail guns are worse. Some believe that regulators fix the problem of over driving the nail but with these thin fiberglass shingles of today, it makes almost no difference. The driver of a nail gun is the same size as the nail head allowing for countersinking of the nail. The difference of a shingles consistency varies with just a few seconds of exposure to the sun and the density of the deck and presence of gaps in the wood or support lumber under the deck cannot be detected by a nail gunner. The roofing hatchet is larger than the nail, preventing over-nailing, and the nailer is in direct cosmic connection to the harmony of the nail to the roofing and the wood it is driven into. He can feel if the nail achieved nirvana.

Sixth comes the associated trades and products. The masonry of the chimney, the HVAC guys and their pipes, the plumbers and their pipes, and the carpenters who built the structure and the materials they use all effect the roof that lies on top of this stuff or integrates with them. Remember that your teeth may be fine but bleeding gums lead to bad breath.

Seven, well I should have made notes because winging it can back one into a corner, is the ridge, which keeps the roof from blowing off, and to some degree, from leaking. The ridge can make the difference between a bad haircut and a Senator John (the jerk off) Edwards mamma jamma styling doo.

Color comes in at eight. Aesthetics comes in late on the list because function supersedes looks. Again, don't get me wrong because "pretty" makes the minimum expectations list for homeowners here in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

Surprising the ninth on the list is the homeowner, the one who selected the roofer and materials. He is part of the first one but is re-listed because he has a continual job to do. He must walk around his home looking for peeling paint, damaged wood, high nails on the roof, stains, and huge piles of leaves in the valleys and behind the chimney. An occasional attic stroll might also save his family's life by preventing carbon monoxide poisoning or electrical fires. Death sucks.

And the drum rolls... Think back to number two. The long lost sibling to the soffit vent, the exhaust vent. The ying to the yang, the making whole by complimenting opposites, the in and the out. What goes in must come out. Together they make a functional balanced ventilation system.

Sometimes homeowners ask for our best crew. All roofing contractors have heard this. The truth is all roofers rise to the expectations of their check provides. Plus it is up to the contractor to find any flaws and have them fixed. For this reason I list the roofing crew with the roofing contractor. The wholesaler falls into this category as well. When the driveway gets cracked or the carport smashed by a forklift, the buck stops here. And frankly, my dear will never do that for a buck again.

The roofing material itself is just part of a total system and if their are any weak links in the chain, the roof will break.

Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Friday, March 25, 2011

What Homeowners Expect From Roofers and What they Should Expect

Roofing contractors know that they should be on time for their appointments or call if something came up. If the roof job is sold, the roofing materials must be announced or cars get trapped in driveways and people get angry. A load of roofing materials can be as large as a small herd of cattle. The crew should come when the customer said they would and the job site should be clean and and the materials installed neatly. That's the minimum.

If your roofing contractor is not a professional roofer but is a professional businessman, he will accomplish these items. but if he is a professional roofing contractor too, he'll accomplish a lot more.

The "lot more" makes everything last longer: exterior and interior paint, insulation, the roofing materials themselves, the HVAC equipment, and the plywood decking. He also enhances your family's health with better air and less humidity and mold. Your utilities go down, your property values stay up, and you feel comfortable on the hottest of days.

How does he do it? The professional roofing company has an ongoing training program to instill and reinforce proper ventilation techniques, nailing patterns, roof style and color selection, increase adverse weather condition waterproofing (snow, ice, wind), and a material warranty from the manufacturer that actually serves as a form of roofing insurance.

Homeowners seldom select roofing material and most roofers just offer what the current product is. The choices available are mind boggling and the best matches are determined by more than house style. Pitch or degree of slope has an important effect on the style and color selection as well as performance.

Make sure your roofer has at least one certification from one of the big three roofing manufacturers: GAF, Certainteed, or Owens Corning. Then make sure he is not an entry level Boy Scout with a Tenderfoot ranking. You want the Eagle Scout. He'll save your life.

Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Thursday, March 24, 2011

What Do Dallas Roofers Want From the Upcoming Dallas Mayoral and City Council Elections

We, the Roofing Contractors of Dallas, in order to form a more perfect union, have several requests from our soon to be elected municipal office holders. So Angela Hunt, Dwaine Caraway, David Kunkle, Ron Natinsky, and all ya'll over in other cities and towns around Dallas and Fort Worth running for office please listen to this:


1)You want more revenue? Make it easy to get a building permit and pay for it on line like Irving and other cities. On insurance claims the insurance companies will reimburse us for the cost of a permit but not for the three or four hours it takes to drive downtown,deal with those slowpokes down at city hall, and drive back to the office. Nor do we get reimbursed for our gas or parking fees while we congest our roads and pollute our air.

2) Make roofers, and other home improvement contractors, post a bond with the city for clean up of abandoned job sites, road debris, repair to damaged roads and sewers by heavy trucks, and trash permits. We use roofing recyclers but not all roofing contractors are willing to go out of their way.

3) Have roofing companies working in Dallas place the city as a rider on their general liability insurance. If the contractor is uninsured he should not be permitted to be permitted.

4) The city should do criminal and civil background checks to make sure those purchasing permits are not a carpetbagging Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, or Henry Lee Lucas.

These four simple requests would offer some consumer protection that Texas refuses to do, increase revenue, free up the roads, keep the air cleaner, keep costs of road and sewer maintenance down, and lower crime.

So why does Dallas call the certificate it issues to contractors a Building License when the contractor doesn't have to know anything except how to sign his name to a check made payable to the City of Dallas?

Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Monday, March 21, 2011

The Job of A Roofing Contractor

My job as a roofing contractor has changed considerably since the roofing company began in 1979. What you saw was what you got, the owner installer, and I believed that because I put the roof on with my own loving hands that my clients received better roofing jobs on their homes.

On repairs I was mostly right but not always. My abilities had not grown to look for underlying causes like humidity, ground movement, and the dreaded bad ventilation design. But nobody knew ventilation like a handful of us know today. Bernoulli, Venturi, Torricelli, and the other fluid dynamic greats were responsible for those weird pipes some of your dorm mates had in their rooms for experimental reasons and now allow me to ventilate your attic properly.

Training the installers and sales staff constantly to keep up with the new technology and the relevant statistics that have been amassed by the manufacturers and trade organizations is part of my new regime as a roofing contractor. We just won a training excellence award from GAF Roofing Materials Corporation. We also won Angie's List Super Service Award for our category in our region because our customers felt comfortable that we knew what we were doing. Plus the installers need regular safety training to keep them from acting like the pilot who, as a passenger, refuses to put on his seat belt.

Training leads to certification, which requires more training, in order to offer the new massively improved manufacturer's warranties that only certified contractors may offer. We can eliminate the proration of the material and add a fifty year labor coverage to material coverage. On top of this we can also issue a twenty year leak coverage backed by the manufacturer.

Insurance is difficult to get and it requires a lot of shopping. The manufacturers also require that their roofing contractors have insurance or they'll be booted from the program. We also carry completed operations and product liability in case something goes wrong later. Huh? A nail in a gas line, allergic reaction to the products, electrical shorts, and an entire slew of roofing mishaps that only one's imagination can come up with until they do. Fact is really stranger than fiction when it comes to roofs. We minimize these possibilities with our attic inspections that very few roofers do.

The peace of mind that your roofing contractor will be there is always important because when things do go wrong, and they can, you'll want to know that an ethical company is there standing with you to protect your home.
Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Dress Like A Roof

Finally, we're going to dress the structure rather than roof it. So says the NRCA in this article about woven roof fabric.

We've always used dress makers terms like head lap, selvage, hem, seam and blocking out. Why not "do you want plaid or strips? A little Parisian poke-a-dot perhaps?


Jon's gone mad! No, read the article. They discuss how technical textiles for roofs have been used in Europe since the 1960's and as recently in South Africa for the stadiums used in the World Cup. They even refer to a roof as "the article" as in clothing.


The seams are either sewed, adhered with chemical crosslinking, vulcanization, solvents or heat.




The piece builds up to a technical cescendo with:
Another promising possibility for architectural textiles exists in the form of coatings with inorganic oxides such as silicon dioxide. Inorganic oxide layers can be transferred from the gas phase to textiles using a variety of vacuum technology processes. A possible alternative is also provided by sol-gel technology.


My gosh. Roofing isn't so easy anymore. (HEY! IT NEVER WAS! GO TO SCHOOL! ROOF SCHOOL)



I found the article fascinating. 


Can we dress up your place?





Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Solving the Ponding Water Problem on Roofs That Aren't As Flat As They Should Be.

Traditionally we'd tear off the old roofing on replacement roofs on commercial buildings. Today, many try to get away from it due to logistics ,like nose bleed altitudes or lack of access due to NASCAR driving antics around the building with Venetian alleys. Regardless, the roofs need to drain.

A flat roof drains it it is completely flat but if it has a sag, well, here begins the process of weight causing more sagging and more sagging causing more weight. Did I mention that water is heavy when forced to accumulate?

If the building permits, we could put in a drain or two but sometimes when you drain the lake, it becomes four or five smaller but deadly ponds. More weight, more sag, more weight, now wait!

Tapered insulation is a common cure for saggy roof syndrome. Just plat the roof, the the puddles, their depth, and the high areas. Make a geological terrain plat, as in plateau or platform. Little circles, rivers, hills, enemy encampments, DEA Agents, and you have the beginnings of a new video game. Then send off your error free topographical map to the experts and they'll put together a puzzle, labeled ,sub-labeled, boxed, and not guaranteed. Garbage in and garbage out. Plus this terrain keeps sagging as the tectonic plates below heave and shove.

Now comes roof in a can. Yes we can. We'll spray leveling foam on the roof low areas prior to either replacing the roof or completing a roof restoration, a process that is often cheaper and better than replacement. Plus you don't have to amortize rejuvenation, just replacement.

Life just keeps getting simpler. Just be careful with that hose buddy because the race below hasn't finished and the wind is starting to blow. Can't to tell by the gaggle of attorneys gathering in the parking lot?


Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Trapped !

This morning we went over to a sky-rise in the Las Colinas area of Irving's north commercial district. When I got out of my truck, my wallet under the seat, since having gone to the gym early, and my keys on the seat, I noticed the wind was blowing. We were parked on an incline. My door went "clunk" or whatever you call it when a fairly new vehicle door closes tightly. My heart sank.

Yeah, I have Triple A Insurance and am a member of their auto club also. Luckily my phone had not been stolen at the Y like it had last week, because it was in my truck. But not now. The overpriced Blackberry that Cbeyond had ransomed me with was in my hand. (Here's the deal bub. You renew with us for three years on your bundle of services, phones, internet, web hosting, cell phones, and we'll sell you the phone at market price. Don't pay the protection money and you have to pay three times the street value of a new phone or only double the cost for a refurbished one.)

The internet was working, I found AAA's number and called them. I had no identification nor my member card but the operator's caller I. D. told her who I was. She said that when the tech showed up I could show him my I.D.

We went up on the roof and I laid out the repairs to the EPDM ballasted rubber roof. The guys knew to clean the roof surface with acetone and apply the butyl tape. We've repaired commercial flat roofs that the manufacturer told us only their product could be used to fix. I call this the "Cbeyond Effect." You know, lies. You know when a giant is stepping on you and you can hear your guts squishing out of your wallet. TPO, PVC, EPDM, and a full vocabulary of synthetic futuristic single ply roof systems that are supposed to last forever have been repaired by us with this simple but expensive tape and not just the manufacturer's defective product. In fact, the new stuff doesn't like cured or older stuff. The old stuff likes our stuff.

Locate the leak. Clean it properly as their is a particular rubbing pattern. Really. Apply tape.

No driving around finding all kinds of different cleaners, primers, tools, and repair adhesives for these acronyms. But the good old BUR still is best repaired by pookie and membrane. Cleaning still required. Locating still required. Wettness removal still required in most cases.

Today I just hope my company reaches the Triple A, AAA, rating, and not the C-left-Beyond rating that I'm going to give those lousy corrupt interneteers.

By the way, Triple A's computer called me several times to keep me informed of the rescue tech's progress and when he arrived he called me. I was told I had forty five minutes before I was extracted and had to line out the guys by then. I was a little upset when the wrecker from Premier Towing showed up early. I bet you wouldn't have been.

I peered over the edge of the building to see him parked next to me. I scrambled down and when I arrived he spent a total of 0.00005 seconds opening my truck. Boy was my wallet safe. Good thing Premier Towing has honest folk working for them. This guy could clean out a parking lot in minutes.If Mario Andriette had locked his keys in his race car, he would have wanted Premier Towing of North Texas on his team. I hope he stays on the Light Side.Funny how nobody remembers the Light Side, only Darth's Dark Side seems to still be incorporated, like C-you later-Beyond.

I'll keep my Triple A and use Premier Towing whenever I need a service. They called too after the ball had been handed off to them by Triple A. Premier called just before he showed up, when he got there, and afterward to see if I was okay. These two companies, working together, helped me keep my customers happy and my referrals coming in.

What kind of service do you want? Do you want a moral and ethical company providing you your services or Darth's IT Solutions. Always check the ethical pulse of a company before biting their apple.

Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Difference Between Roof Felt And Leak Barrier For Factory Certified Roofers

Roofing felt has different names. The vernacular is tar paper but this name will soon be obsolete. With all the new synthetic felts out today, like the recently released TigerPaw by GAF, the word felt is a misnomer. Here's what Dictionary.com has to say:

1)a nonwoven fabric of wool, fur, or hair, matted together by heat, moisture, and great pressure.
2)any article made of this material, as a hat.
3)any matted fabric or material, as a mat of asbestos fibers, rags, or old paper, used for insulation and in construction.
–adjective
4)pertaining to or made of felt.
–verb (used with object)
5)to make into felt;  mat or press together.
6)to cover with or as with felt.
–verb (used without object)
7)to become matted together.
 
Except for Opus Roof Blanket , and not the penguin,the new synthetics are not really mats of any kind. None have paper or rag in them. None have asphalt. 

So roofers need new terminology. So says Dave, the roofing guru hired by GAF to pump us up once a year. Dave says we shouldn't use roof jargon and instead should call it what the homeowners call stuff.

Out goes the word felt and in comes deck protector, either tar paper (it hurts me to say that) or synthetic.

Next comes leak protector. Many call it ice and water shield but this is a name brand of Grace Products, like Coke is used by us Texans for all sodas. Grace calls it an underlayment and want you to use it as such. Sure cove the entire deck with it. Then call the doctor because the fungus amongst us is about to reach Steve McQueen's Blob size. 
 
GAF makes StormGuard, Underroof 2, and WeatherWatch. Certainteed makes WinterGuard, and who cares what the evil manufacturers Atlas and Malarkey make. Tamko has removed itself from the game by not having a certification program and enhanced warranties but their products are fine. Owens Corning put the screws to me back in 1981 and I'm still sore from it. That's $6500.00 in 1981 dollars that this poor roofer made good to the customer out of his own pocket. I guess it was lost in their bankruptcy.  

A prudent and knowledgeable roofer will use leak protector around all roof penetrations: dormers, pipes, skylights, chimneys, and roof to wall. Deck protector, the sticky felt like product, may be used in valleys but it is not a substitute for valley metal. The guy that wrote that he likes closed valleys because you don't need expensive metal in the valleys should have his valleys stomped out. One little hole in the valley and you'll think King Kong is on the roof the next time it rains.

If you are going for an enhanced warranty you'll need to use deck protector on the eaves too. This helps prevent ice dam leaking but if you vent properly this should not be a problem.

Write this down and memorize it: It'll never snow a foot here in Texas.

These leak protectors and synthetic deck protectors, coupled with balanced ventilation, professional starter strips, and heavy high profile ridge, and not the 20 year three tab, enhance your roof from good to great. They make everything in the home last longer. 

Your factory certified roofer can now take the proration from your material warranty and add labor costs to the warranty, almost removing the word "limited" from the warranty. Now it becomes an NDL, No Dollar Limit, warranty for 50 years in most cases.

That is why you must use a factory certified roofing company, the higher the certification the better. In GAF's case, you have Certified, which means little, and Master Elite, the top of the food chain.

Read what this dude has to say about it here: InspectApedia.
Here's GAF's propoganda. That means click it granny..

Jon Alan Wright
Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows
1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310
Irving, TX 75061
972.251.1818 Office
214.718.3748 Cell
972.554.8090 Fax
Master Elite Roofer: (Scroll to the bottom)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

How to Pick A Roof Style

In college a mate told me "taste is a matter of taste." This might be true for a shirt or shoe style but when you pick a roof, resale and architectural truths become determining forces. If you let the ex-con roofer pick your $15,000.00 roof and have decided that a well trained professional cannot do a better job, then just hang up now, because that's what you do when you terminate the Internet connection. Maybe you should let let your yard man or your waiter purvey your furniture for you too.

 But if you decide to make your home reach it's full potential, with cost in mind of course, then you might want to read the next few paragraphs. Otherwise buzz off and quit using electricity, unless you have renewable wind or solar.

The Frank Lloyd Wright homes to the Cap Cod with dormers have different needs. We've already discussed color and the old hag won, but today I shall come out on top. I'm King of the World Ma! Oops, Cagney died in that scene. Never saw the movie but I've seen that clip many times.

In the beginning, right after mud huts and log cabins, in New England, there was the Colonial or Early American style. Later the old Red Coat style called Tudor Style came into fashion. Here we go slate, slate slate. A wood look is okay, but slate or stone is best. Just think New England. So if you don't go real slate or TrueSlate, you can go with Certainteed's Symphony or the asphaltic Slateline, Country Mansion, Camelot, Grand Manor, Highland Slate, or Carriage House.The Capstone reminds one of cut stone, almost a slate.

If you have a lower slope, the face of the shingle becomes less important and the butt end becomes prominent. Here comes the heavy wood look like the Certainteed Presidential or GAF Sequoia. Both of these have big brothers that are really massive.

French Colonial is right their with a slate look but I believe tile looks bad here. Tile like Gerard or the less impressive Decra look good on French Colonial, Spanish, or even Ranch.

Ranch looks good with the wood look products right down to the good old Timberline, America's favorite roof. If you budget does not allow for the designer shingles, Timberline is a great second choice, but be sure to get the High Definition version and not the lame Natural Shadow. Think of it as a builder grade.

Most manufacturers have virtual remodelers on their websites that allow you to select a style of home close to yours and then modify the brick, paint, roof style and color. The better ones allow you to download a picture of your home, or any random home you want, and then manipulate it to your heart's content.

Remember that if you choose the wrong color and style, it may be up their for a long time. But other hot buttons exist like energy efficient high emissivity roofs and impact resistant roof that can help lower your premiums and even keep you from going through the reroof process after a hail storm.

Color trumps style but a cheap roof looks cheap. On many homes the roof makes the first impression and that is the one that lasts.