Salish Roofing

Why roofs fail

Ask anyone who repairs roofs where they leak and the answer is the same: not in the middle, but wherever the roof meets something else.

A roof almost never fails in the middle. It fails where it meets something else. Six places a roof gives way. Five of them are transitions.
Garage Point 1 — ridge caps 1 Ridge caps — the first to work loose Point 2 — the field of the roof 2 The field — granule loss and age Point 3 — valleys 3 Valleys carry runoff from two slopes at once Point 4 — flashing 4 Flashing — chimney, and where the garage roof meets the wall Point 5 — vent boot 5 Vent boot Point 6 — eaves and ice dams 6 Eaves — ice dams push water back uphill

The six

What this region does to a roof

Eight damp months a year that grow moss on every shaded slope, and conifers that mat the valleys and gutters with needles. Winter condensation under the deck of any attic that cannot breathe — a ventilation problem, not a weather one. Edges that stay wet long after the field has dried. And flashing that outlives its sealant at every chimney and vent. Most of what ends a roof here traces back to one of those.

Roofing around the Puget Sound →