Pawtuxet Roofing

Roofing contractors in Providence and Kent

Most of the difference between two roofing quotes is not the shingle. It is what happens underneath it, and what happens if the decking turns out to be soft.

Five lines that make two quotes comparable here

  • The sheathing. Solid, or boards laid with gaps? Pre-war housing here is usually the second, and a modern covering needs a continuous surface. Ask the per-sheet rate before the roof is opened.
  • The rear roof. Behind almost every steep front slope sits a much shallower section. It is a separate roof with separate materials, and it is where the leaks usually are.
  • The party wall. On a row or a twin, that junction rises through a plane two households share. Rebuilt metal outlives the covering; sealant is a maintenance item.
  • The chimneys. Often two, and often carrying nothing any more. Flashing let into the brick outlives the covering; sealed to the face of it does not.
  • Access. Narrow street, hillside lot, no side yard. Where the container goes and how the crew reaches the back decides real hours, and it belongs in the price rather than in the surprise.
A roof here rarely gives out in the field. It gives out where the heat gets out. Six places, numbered. Only one of them is the covering you can see from the street.
Rear ell Point 1: the ridge 1 Point 2: the field of the covering 2 Point 3: the valleys 3 Point 4: flashing at a shared wall 4 Point 5: a penetration 5 Point 6: the overhang 6
  1. 1 The ridge. One ridge over two households, and one of them pays to replace it.
  2. 2 The field. The part everyone looks at, and rarely the part that actually failed.
  3. 3 Valleys. Most of them were cut in later, when the house was divided into flats.
  4. 4 The chimney. Often two of them, and often neither one carries anything any more.
  5. 5 Penetrations. Two kitchens and two bathrooms mean twice the holes on the same roof.
  6. 6 The overhang. Where heat from a flat you do not control comes back down as ice.

The work

Why roofs fail in this region

A winter that crosses the freezing point dozens of times rather than settling below it. Post-war Capes and split-levels with rooms built into the attic, so there is no ordinary space left to ventilate. A second layer of shingles that the state tolerated for years and a great many houses accepted. Skylights and dormers added in the 1980s and 1990s, each one a hole surrounded by flashing. And a roof edge that takes every drop of water the roof sheds. Most of what gets reported here traces back to one of those.

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