Roofing contractors in the Twin Cities
Winter does the work here, and it does most of it at the edge of the roof rather than in the middle. That is where the money in an estimate ought to be going.
Cold changes the order of the list
- How far up the slope does the ice-and-water shield go?
- Is the ventilation being corrected, or reinstalled the way it was?
- New flashing, or the old flashing sealed back down?
- What does a sheet of decking cost, and how many are assumed?
The first two are the ones that matter here, and they are the same problem seen from opposite ends. A warm attic melts the snow lying on the roof, the meltwater runs down to the cold edge and freezes there, and the ice backs up under the covering. Shield at the eaves keeps that water out of the house. Ventilation stops it happening in the first place. A quote that does one and not the other has fixed half of it.
The other two are what anyone should ask anywhere.
- 1 Ridge caps. Fatigued by an annual swing few other climates ask of a roof.
- 2 The field. Snow load and age together, not one or the other.
- 3 Valleys. Meltwater runs under the snowpack here, out of sight.
- 4 Flashing. The chimney, and where a lower roof meets a wall.
- 5 The vent boot. Cold makes the rubber brittle, then a thaw opens the crack.
- 6 Eaves and ice dams. Ice builds at the edge wherever attic heat is escaping.
The work
Why roofs fail in this region
The metro built out in waves, so whole plats reach the end of a first roof within a season or two of each other. Sixty degrees of annual temperature range works every fastener loose, escaping attic heat turns February snowmelt into standing water at the eaves, and the whole job has to happen inside a six-month season. Most of what gets reported here is predictable.