Swapping Out a Tired Asphalt Roof, Down to the Bare Deck
An asphalt roof seldom quits all at once. The grit thins first, then edges curl, and one slope usually goes before the others. We read every face of a Beasley roof, tell you plainly whether the whole thing is finished, and when it is, take it back to the wood and build it up again.
Veteran BuiltBeasley, Texas
Forty miles out, planned as one trip
Beasley sits about forty miles from the middle of Houston, and we drive down from Cypress for every job. That distance shapes the plan. The first visit is for measuring and photographing every slope, the material is ordered off those numbers, and on install day the crew, the shingles and the dumpster all pull in together, so the roof never waits on a forgotten box of drip edge.
Beasley has its own city government, so a re-roof on a house inside the limits answers to the City of Beasley. Out past the line, there is no city permit at all; only county floodplain, septic, driveway and culvert rules and state rules can reach a property there. An address off Spur 529 or Loop 540 could fall on either side, so we check the lot itself.
The land around Beasley is flat coastal ground, and in a hard Gulf rain the water off a roof gathers in the valleys and moves slowly once it hits the yard. On an aging asphalt roof, valleys and the shingles right below them are usually where the grit wears thinnest and the first leaks start, so they get a long look on every slope.
Telling a worn-out roof from a weathered one takes a close look at every face. Bare asphalt showing through the granules, tabs cupped or curled at the corners, and grit piling up at the foot of the downspouts all point to age. One bad slope facing the afternoon sun can usually be repaired. When the same signs repeat on the north side too, the whole roof has reached the end of its run.
A replacement comes off in sections, all the way to the decking, old felt and staples included. Then we walk the bare wood. A sheet that sags between rafters or has turned black from a slow leak gets cut out and replaced with plywood of matching thickness, and it gets photographed first so you see exactly what was swapped and why the scope allowed for it. Nailing new shingles into soft wood wastes the new roof.
Nothing that touches water gets reused. Synthetic underlayment goes over the whole deck, with self-adhered membrane in each valley. Drip edge is new along every eave and rake. Every pipe boot is replaced, because a cracked old boot inside a brand new roof is still a leak, and the roof vents come off and go back as new units sized to the attic. Then the shingles go on from the eave up, with ridge caps last.
Worn out all over, or worn in one spot
An old asphalt roof and a roof that needs replacing are not always the same thing, and here is how we separate them.
- Granule loss shows bare black asphalt on three or four faces of the roof, and the gutters have been catching grit for a few seasons running.
- The tabs have cupped and curled across the whole field, so they no longer lie flat enough for their seal strips to grab in a wind.
- The roof is an older three-tab whose color line is long discontinued, so new shingles patched into it would show from the road.
- There are already two layers on the house, and whatever goes on next should start from clean decking with no third layer piled on top.
- A single slope worn thin by years of western sun, with firm grit everywhere else, can be redone on its own and the rest left alone.
- When the only leak is at a vent collar or a pipe boot, that part gets replaced, and a roof with good grit keeps its shingles.
- Some dark streaking from algae on the north slope looks bad from the yard, and it says nothing about whether the shingles underneath are worn out.
- Shingles that have faded in color but still hold their grit and lie flat are cosmetic wear, and we will tell you to wait.
Measure, order, tear off, rebuild
- I
Measure and photograph
On the first trip one of the owners checks the attic, walks every slope, counts the layers at an edge and measures the whole roof. Each face gets photographed, and those pictures plus the measurements are what the material order and the written scope are built from.
- II
Permit and order
If the lot is inside Beasley’s city limits, the city permit goes into the plan before anything else. Outside the limits there is none to pull. Shingles, underlayment, membrane, drip edge, boots and vents are ordered off the measurements so they arrive with the crew.
- III
Tear-off and deck
Tarps cover the beds and the patio, the old roof comes off in sections down to the wood, and soft sheets are replaced. Only as much is opened as can be dried in before the afternoon, so a pop-up storm finds underlayment instead of bare plywood.
- IV
Shingle, sweep, hand over
New shingles go on from the eaves to the ridge, then caps and vents. A magnet gets rolled over the yard, patio and drive. Inside the limits, any city inspection happens before we call it finished, and you get the decking photos with the scope checked off against the roof.
Before we put a number on it
- Do you know the roof’s age, or when the house last had a full tear-off?
- Have you noticed grit collecting in the gutters or at the downspouts?
- Where has water shown up inside, and has it come back after a patch?
- Is the house inside Beasley’s city limits, as far as you know?
- Is anything planted along the eaves or parked under them that needs covering?
How can I tell if my asphalt roof is worn out?
From the ground, look for patchy color where the granules have washed off, corners curling up, and grit in the gutters after a rain. None of that settles it alone. We confirm it on the roof, slope by slope, and the photos show you what we saw.
Do you tear off or shingle over the old roof?
We tear off. Laying new shingles over old would bury any soft plywood, load more weight on the rafters and hold heat against the new roof. It also leaves the next roofer two layers to strip. Going down to bare decking is how we see what the old roof has been hiding.
Why replace pipe boots and vents that look fine?
Because they went on with the old roof and have aged right along with it. The rubber collar on a boot cracks in the sun long before it looks bad from the ground. Reusing old metal and rubber inside a new roof saves little and is where the first leak usually comes from.
Does algae streaking mean I need a new roof?
No. Dark streaks running down a slope are usually algae feeding on the shingle surface, and they look worse than they are. We check under the streaks for grit loss and curling. If the shingles are sound, the streaks are a cleaning question, and we will tell you so.
Why do the south and west slopes wear out first?
Those faces take the hardest afternoon sun, so the asphalt dries and the grit lets go sooner there. It is common to find a south slope worn through while the north side still looks decent. We photograph each slope separately so you can see the difference for yourself.
Will you tell me if I can wait another year?
Yes. If the grit is holding on most slopes and the decking feels solid underfoot, the scope says so, and we tell you what to watch: the valleys, the sunny slope and the gutters after a storm. A roof gets replaced when it has run out, and not before.
A First Sergeant on the ladder
Leland Cannon spent 21 years as a soldier and left the Army as a First Sergeant. In a company, that is the sergeant who checks the details nobody else wants to check, and on a roof it looks like pressing on every questionable sheet of plywood and counting the cracked boots himself before he tells you what the job is.
One phone number covers the job from the first call to the last walk-around, and the person who answers it is an owner. If the old shingles still have life in them, you hear that before we leave the driveway, and the written scope says the same thing.