CORNWALL, ON – Roofing companies across Eastern Ontario spend September and October working through a backlog, and there is a technical reason for the urgency that most homeowners never hear explained.
Asphalt shingles do not seal themselves with nails alone. Each shingle carries a strip of heat-activated adhesive on its underside, and that strip bonds to the course below only when it gets warm enough in sunlight. Bond properly and the roof behaves as a single sheet under wind. Fail to bond and the roof is a stack of individually nailed tabs, each one a lever for the next gust.
In cold weather that adhesive may not activate at all until the following spring. Shingles installed in November can sit unsealed through the entire winter, which is the season that tests them hardest. Manufacturers address this by specifying hand-sealing in cold-weather installations, but it is extra labour that a rushed crew can skip and a homeowner would never notice.
RoofRoof Ottawa, which works across Ottawa and Eastern Ontario, provides roof repair along with replacement, shingle and metal roofing, flat roofing, flashing, ventilation, eavestrough, skylights and storm damage work. The rest of what it does is described on the services page.
Ahead of winter, the company says the items worth checking are less dramatic than most people expect.
Flashing comes first. The great majority of roof leaks are not shingle failures; they are failures where the roof meets something else. Chimneys, valleys, plumbing stacks, skylights and wall junctions are where water gets in, and flashing is what keeps it out. A roof can be twelve years into a thirty-year shingle and still be leaking at a chimney.
Eavestroughs come second, and they matter more in this climate than in a milder one. A gutter packed with the year’s leaves cannot move meltwater away from the roof edge. Water that cannot drain freezes there instead.
That leads to the third item, which is the one homeowners generally misdiagnose. Ice dams at the eaves are usually not a roof problem at all. They form when heat escaping the living space into the attic melts snow on the upper roof, and the meltwater refreezes when it reaches the cold overhang beyond the heated envelope. The ridge of ice that builds up then holds water behind it, and water sitting against shingles finds its way under them.
Heat cables treat the symptom. The actual fixes are attic insulation and roof ventilation, which keep the attic cold enough that the snow above it does not melt in the first place. It is one of the few home repairs where the solution is nowhere near where the damage appears.
The fourth item is simply looking. Shingles that are cupping, curling at the corners or shedding granules into the gutter are telling a homeowner where they are in their life cycle, and the difference between finding that out in October and finding it out in February is considerable.
The company says assessments can be arranged for Cornwall-area properties and that estimates come free and in writing.
About RoofRoof Ottawa
RoofRoof Ottawa is an Ottawa-based roofing company serving Ottawa and surrounding Eastern Ontario communities. Services include roof repair, roof replacement, shingle roofing, metal roofing, flat roofing, emergency and storm damage roof repair, roof flashing, roof ventilation, attic insulation, eavestrough and gutter guards, skylight installation, chimney caps, siding and rooftop snow removal.
Estimates follow a roof inspection. The company can be reached at (343) 308-5957.
More information is available at RoofRoofOttawa.ca.
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