Tear Off Old Roof?
The guy who is replacing my old leaky skylights tells me our roof is in bad shape. We had a new “rubber” roof (I’m told it’s not really rubber) put on 14 years ago, and it is definitely showing wear–we’ve had some leaks, and some of the flashing was done poorly in the first place….
The guy who is replacing my old leaky skylights tells me our roof is in bad shape. We had a new “rubber” roof (I’m told it’s not really rubber) put on 14 years ago, and it is definitely showing wear–we’ve had some leaks, and some of the flashing was done poorly in the first place. The skylight guy says he can feel ice crackling under the roofing surface as he walks around. He says we could patch the bad spots, or put on another whole layer of “rubber”– but at this point he recommends taking all the old roof layers off and starting from scratch–otherwise, he says, we’ll have new cracks opening up. The price of a new layer is $350 per sq foot; the price of ripping it all off and then putting on a new one is $1000 per sq foot. Generally I like to do things thoroughly and properly rather than covering over old problems, but I wonder if it’s worth the extra expense. Any thoughts?
I believe the amount of roofing layers is dictated by whether you have a sloped or flat roof. I think a sloped roof can have only three layers of roofing. A flat roof can have many more layers of roofing than a sloped roof. The number of layers is governed by how the weight on the roof is distributed. A flat roof is designed to support more weight per square measure than a sloped roof, i.e. many inches of snow, without caving in. I am not a roofing expert, but I’ve been told this by several roofers.
Pretty sure you mean 1000 per square. Roofing is priced “per square” and a square is 10×10 or 100 sq ft.
No idea what prices are like these days. Used to be, cheap asphalt would run $100 per square (or less) and slate used to run 1k a square with options in btw. Tearing old stuff off, working around skylights, the NYC ‘premium’, etc, is all extra.
Put me in the WTF category!
My roof is approx 900 sq. feet. The thought of contemplating paying someone $315,000 to put a new layer or $900,000 to redo the roof is mind boggling. For that kind of money I would just go to roofing school or whatever and do it myself.
I think the rule of thumb is you aren’t supposed to do more than 3 layers of roofing, after which you should tear it off and start new. No idea on price.
Hmm.
I think $3.50 psf and $10.00 psf are more accurate estimates.
You can build a new house for 3x less per sq ft.
holy crap. at $1000 per sq foot on a (for example) 20×40 building = $800,000
why not just get a new house?
Brooklyn Heights homes don’t even cost $1,000 psf anymore.
$1000 per sqft? wtf!