Roof Replacement in Davenport, Iowa

Half the houses in Davenport were built before 1966. A roof lasts twenty to thirty years. That means most homes here are on their second or third roof, and a lot of them are past due. Replacement is not a repair that got bigger. It is a different job with a different crew size, and it ends with a roof that starts its life over.

When a Roof Is Done

A roof is finished when the repairs stop holding. There is no single sign, but these five together mean the roof is spending your money.

• Granules collecting in the gutters and at the bottom of downspouts
• Shingles curling at the corners or lying flat and brittle
• Bare black mat showing where the granules are gone
• More than one leak, in more than one place, in the same year
• A roof past twenty years that has been patched twice

Any one of these on its own may only need a repair. Three or more, on a roof over twenty years old, and you are paying for a new roof in installments without getting one.

What a Tear Off Day Looks Like

A crew of six to eight arrives between seven and eight in the morning. The first two hours are protection, not roofing. Tarps go over the landscaping, plywood leans against the siding and a dump trailer backs into the driveway.

1. The old roof comes off in sections, down to the bare wood deck
2. Every square foot of decking gets walked and checked for soft spots
3. Bad sheets come out and new ones go in, priced by the sheet
4. Ice and water shield goes down at the eaves, the valleys and around every pipe
5. Synthetic underlayment covers the rest of the deck
6. Drip edge, starter course, then the field of the roof, ridge last
7. A magnet rolls the yard and the driveway twice before the truck leaves

You do not need to be home. You do need to move cars out of the driveway and take anything breakable off the walls in rooms directly under the roof. A tear off shakes a house harder than people expect.

What Goes Under the Shingles Matters More Here

Iowa gets freeze and thaw. Water backs up under the bottom courses of shingles when snow melts against a cold eave, and shingles alone will not stop water moving uphill. Ice and water shield will.

Code in most of this area asks for that membrane to reach two feet inside the warm wall line. On a house with a deep overhang that means more than one course. We run it to the line the roof needs, not the line the code barely allows, and it is on the estimate so you can see it.

The Price, and What Moves It

Roofing is sold by the square, which is one hundred square feet. An average Davenport two story house is between eighteen and thirty squares. Four things move the number more than anything else.

Our estimates carry a deck repair rate per sheet up front. That way a surprise under the old roof is arithmetic and not an argument. Read How Roofing Is Priced before you take any bid, including ours.

Choosing the Material

Most homes here get architectural asphalt shingles, because they handle hail well for the money and every crew in the valley knows them. Standing seam metal lasts longer and sheds snow, and it costs more. Both are right for different houses.

The materials library walks through all of them with real lifespans and weights, and the roof visualizer will put any color on a house before you commit.

Questions About Roof Replacement