Roofing in North Palm Beach

On a house from the fifties or sixties the interesting part of a re-roof is not the shingle or tile going on. It is what comes off.

Board decking that has been nailed into two or three times, old fasteners, patched sections from an earlier repair, and underlayment that predates today's secondary water barrier. When the covering comes off, we seal a self-adhered secondary water barrier to the deck before anything goes back on, one of the methods the Florida Building Code allows on a re-roof, and a deck that has softened along old fastener lines will not hold the new nails.

That is why the deck repair allowance is a real line on our estimates here rather than a formality. We photograph the deck as it is exposed and get your approval before replacing more than the allowance covers, so the figure you agreed to is the figure you pay unless you have seen the reason it moved.

1. Most of our North Palm Beach calls come through a neighbour, and most of them start as repairs: Ocean Drive, Smith Drive, a building on U.S. Highway 1.
2. A repair visit here usually finds a fifties or sixties roof with a tired deck and a covering that still looks acceptable from the street, which is why we open it where it needs opening rather than pricing from the driveway. The village sits on the lagoon rather than the open ocean, which takes some of the edge off the salt compared with the barrier towns a mile east, but the 170 mph fastening schedule applies just the same.
3. On the Country Club island, reached by three bridges, tile, dumpster and delivery moves are planned before the permit goes in, not on the morning of tear-off.

If the leak is at one flashing or a few lifted shingles on a deck that is still sound, a repair is the right answer and we will say so. If repairs, replacements or roof recovering cover more than a quarter of a roof system or section in any 12-month period, the code generally requires replacing or recovering the roof covering across that entire system or section to meet current code requirements.

If that system or section was built, repaired or replaced in compliance with the 2007 Florida Building Code or a later edition, only the portion being worked on must meet applicable current code requirements. Our inspection helps determine which applies to your roof.

On higher-value houses the code can also require the roof-to-wall connections to be retrofitted when the covering is replaced, so ask for that to be priced up front rather than discovered on the permit. Do it before the summer storm season, when the permit desk is quiet and the roof is dry.

To get an inspection, call (561) 318-8624; the phone is answered 24 hours a day. A Molsbee roofer walks the roof, photographs what he finds and puts the price in writing, with the deck allowance and what happens beyond it spelled out.

Tile, metal and shingle roof replacement, flat roof repair and replacement, roof leak repair, roof inspection and roof replacement cost each have their own North Palm Beach page, written for a village roof of this age. Open the one that matches your roof, or call and we will tell you which it is.

Yes. The Village of North Palm Beach Building Division at 701 US Highway 1 issues roof permits itself through My Government Online, and inspections can be done by photo, virtually or in person.

The file needs the application, the signed contract, two copies of the county 100/200/300/400 roofing forms and two copies of each product approval. We prepare that set complete, because the missing copy is what stalls a permit here.

A minor repair below the line in the quarter-roof rule explained above is handled differently from a replacement. We tell you which side your job is on before we quote, because it changes the paperwork, the timeline and the price, and you should hear it from us rather than from the inspector.

Because by now it has carried two or three roofs. Board decking that has been fastened into repeatedly, patched in places and softened in others is normal at this age, and it is invisible until the covering comes off.

New shingles or tile are only as good as the nails holding them, and those nails need sound wood. That is what the deck repair allowance is for, and you approve anything beyond it against a photograph.

All three are on these streets. Shingle on much of the original stock, tile where houses were built or rebuilt for it, and metal increasingly along Yacht Club Drive and the lagoon.

What decides it here is the structure and, where there is one, the association: a fifties truss built for shingle may need an engineer to say it can carry tile. On the lagoon frontage the edge metal and fasteners are specified for salt whichever covering goes on.

We tell you what the deck can carry before you fall for a material.

North Palm Beach is a village built in a single decade: MacArthur bought the land in 1954 and the National Association of Home Builders gave it their planned-community award for 1956, so a large part of the housing stock is the same age and on its second or third covering. In Palm Beach County a shingle roof generally lasts 13 to 18 years, tile 15 to 20, metal 20 to 25, and a flat roof 15 to 20.

Here the covering is often not the thing that decides it. The deck is.

Board decking that has carried three roofs and been nailed into every time reaches a point where a fourth covering is being fastened into wood that will not hold it, and that shows up as a deck repair allowance rather than as a leak. So on a fifties house, plan a replacement off the last one's date and off what a roofer finds when the covering is opened, not off how the shingles look from the pavement.

The Village permits replacements and major repairs itself and wants the roof materials named on the drawings, which is one more reason to decide in the spring rather than in a hurry.