Salish Roofing

Roofing contractors around the Puget Sound

Roofs here give out to damp rather than heat, which is slower and much easier to ignore. By the time the moss is obvious the question has usually moved to the wood underneath it.

Start at the edge

Have someone look at the eaves before you look at either price. Water that sits at the bottom of a slope for months at a stretch gets into the fascia and the first foot of deck, and putting that right is carpentry rather than roofing. It is also the most common reason a quote grows on the morning the old covering comes off.

So the question is not whether the crew will find soft wood. It is what happens when they do. A quote that names a price per sheet and says how many sheets it assumes has turned an unknown into something you can plan around. One that says nothing has left the number open.

Two more, quickly. Is the flashing new, or cleaned and put back down? And is the attic ventilation being corrected? Damp air held under a cold roof does slower damage than a leak, but it does it everywhere at once.

A roof here rarely dies in the middle. It dies at the edges and in the shade. Six of them, numbered. Five are places where the roof meets something else.
Garage Point 1: ridge caps 1 Ridge caps: the first pieces to lift Point 2: the field of the roof 2 The field: moss on damp slopes Point 3: valleys 3 Valleys: needles, wet for months Point 4: flashing 4 Flashing: chimney, addition Point 5: vent boot 5 Vent boot Point 6: eaves and rot 6 Eaves, the last part of the roof to dry
  1. 1 Ridge caps. The first pieces to lift, and the ones the weather gets underneath.
  2. 2 The field. Moss on the damp slopes holds water where the covering wants to dry.
  3. 3 Valleys. Needles mat where two slopes drain as one, and stay wet for months.
  4. 4 Flashing. The chimney, and where an addition meets the original roof.
  5. 5 The vent boot. Rubber perishes quietly under a canopy that never lets it dry out.
  6. 6 Eaves. The last part of the roof to dry, and the first to go soft.

The work

Why roofs fail in this region

The Sound built out in waves, so whole streets reach the end of a first roof within a season or two of each other. Eight damp months a year grow moss on every shaded slope, conifers load the valleys and gutters, and a poorly vented attic condenses the household’s winter moisture onto the underside of the deck. Most of what gets reported here is predictable.

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