What Happens During a Roof Replacement?

Most of the stress in a roof replacement comes from not knowing what happens next. So here’s what happens next, in order.

After you sign

You get one email introducing the three people you’ll deal with: the scheduler, the billing contact, and the production lead who’ll be in charge on your roof. Names and phone numbers. From then on you never have to guess who to call.

The scheduler puts you on the calendar and keeps you posted until the week of. If you have a hard date to work around, tell them early; we’ll do what we can.

The week before

Your production lead calls to walk you through it: which day the crew arrives, what day one looks like, what day two looks like, where the trucks and the dumpster go, and what you need to move. Cars out of the driveway. Anything fragile off the walls, because the hammering shakes the house. Pets somewhere calm.

It’s going to be loud. We’d rather tell you that now.

Use our roof replacement preparation checklist to plan for parking, pets, noise and access before the crew arrives.

Before the crew starts

Anything we flagged at the inspection gets set up first: hand-loading if there’s a paver driveway we can’t drive on, a plywood box over the garden bed under the eaves, tarps over the deck and the AC unit. That was in the proposal, so there are no surprises here.

Tear-off

The old roof comes off, down to the wood. This is the noisy, messy day, and it’s the day we find out what’s under there. If we uncover rotten decking we couldn’t see from above, we stop, dry the roof in, and call you with what we found and the cost of the extra sheets before we go any further. We don’t roof over rot.

Dry-in

Synthetic underlayment goes on over the whole deck, and ice and water shield goes in the valleys, along the eaves, and around anything that pokes through the roof. These layers provide secondary protection beneath the roof covering, which is why tear-off and dry-in happen on the same day when the weather allows.

The roof

Flashing, shingles or metal panels, vents, pipe boots, ridge. We use small crews on purpose. It takes a little longer than a big crew would, and the same few people know the whole roof by the time they’re done. Your production lead is reachable the entire time.

Cleanup and the walkthrough

The crew cleans the yard every day, and at the end we sweep it with magnets for nails. Then production leadership walks the roof and the property. If anything isn’t up to standard, it gets fixed before we call the job done.

After

Billing sends your paid-in-full paperwork. Keep it with the contract; that’s what transfers the ten-year workmanship warranty to the next owner. A week or so later you’ll get a note asking how it went. We read those.

Read more about roof replacement, or request a free inspection to find out whether you need one.