Roof Overlayment vs. Tear Off

If you are considering getting a new roof, you may not need to tear off the current roof. Instead you can do a roof overlayment, but this depends on the type of roof and the condition of the existing roof as well.

Shingle Roof Tear Off

When dealing with a shingle roof, a tear off is recommended as opposed to a roof overlayment. Occasionally, you will have no choice but to tear off the existing roof. If you already have a roof overlayment on your shingle roof, a tear off is unavoidable the next time you replace your roof. This is common with older homes since they are not able to sustain the weight of the additional shingles in a roof overlayment. There is also big curb appeal to having one layer of shingles as opposed to two.

Shingle Roof Overlayment

A roof overlayment with shingles should only be considered if the budget is tight. In the future, a tear off will need to happen and since you need to take off two layers as opposed to one, the cost increases. This is because of the additional labor and time. There is also difficulty in identifying problem areas on your roof if it has two layers. Issues that occur may not be caught in time therefore costing you more. Heat absorption is one of those issues that will increase with two layers and shorten your roofs lifetime.

Commercial Roof Overlayment

We have found that once issues start to occur with a metal roof, they will keep popping up. Choosing to tear off the metal roof will be labor intensive and end up costing you more. It’s recommend to look into a metal retrofit since it can be more cost effective. Royalty can also do a partial metal retrofit if the roof decking is unaffected and there is only a small area affected that needs to be fixed. This can save you the cost of a total roof overlayment for the time being. More information about metal retrofit roofing can be found here.

In the case of membrane roofing, a roof overlayment is possible if the roof deck is not saturated. If the roof deck is saturated, a tear off may be unavoidable. Many times, Royalty can overlay a roof that most would want to tear off if we know that we are giving a long-lasting, quality roof with a long-term warranty

If you find yourself needing a roof replacement give Royalty a call at 800-303-8392 and we can set up a free estimate. Our estimators will best be able to let you know if you need a tear off or a roof overlayment.