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COMPOSITECMYK
YOUR HOME
A G U I D E T O B E T T E R LIV ING SPA CE S
Thursday, August 29, 2002 Section H
HOW TO DEAL WITH PEELING EXTERIOR PAINT/H5
HIGH TECH H7
.com
BUILD A BUDGET BACK-TO-SCHOOL DESK/H7
Day With
The Experts:
You can see
it on the
Web/H2
Kathy
Renwald
finds an
unusual
sunflower/H3
Shingles,
slate, shakes
or metal?
Is your roof starting
to look like it needs
some work? Read on
to learn about your
options and how
to choose the right
contractor for the job
BRIAN DEXTER/TORONTO STAR
CLASSIC LOOK: Martin Neufeld works on a Galvalume metal roof being installed on an 1878 farmhouse on Mayfield Rd. in Caledon.
B Y B RIAN D EXTER
STAFF REPORTER
These days almost any kind of
roofing job is a big and costly deal
for the homeowner.
But when it comes time to build a
home or repair an old roof, do you
use shingles, shakes, steel, tiles,
slate, plastic or rubber?
Making the right choice of roof
materials isn’t easy and there are
more of them around than ever.
In fact, it’s a jungle when it comes
to finding out what’s best for you,
hiring a contractor or deciding
whether you can handle a re-roofing
job, or at least some kind of repair,
by yourself.
You can pay as little as $3,000 for
an asphalt shingle re-roofing job on
a small three-bedroom house in Toronto. On the other hand, you find
$200,000 custom jobs, possibly with
metal or tile, at some large upscale
homes.
Peter Kalinger, technical director
of the Canadian Roofing Contractors’ Association, estimates at least
$400 million a year is spent in Canada on residential-sector roofing.
For homeowners looking for
“tried and true,” economical roofing
solutions, asphalt shingles have
been used throughout Canada since
the late 1800s.
In fact, asphalt shingles account
for more than 80 per cent of the roofing market, but many other options
are now available, including products made of recycled plastic and
rubber, Kalinger points out.
“Some of these replicate slate, tile
or wood shingles but are lightweight
and durable,” he says. “We see the
use of metal roofing increasing too.
There have been dramatic changes
in respect to surface finishes, products have become less susceptible to
corrosion and there’s better colour
retention.”
But some products don’t yet have
a proven track record, Kalinger
warns, and it’s wise to check out
specific products and manufacturers
at www.nrc.ca/ccmc, the Internet
Web site of the Canadian Construction Materials Centre, an arm of the
National Research Council.
For example, when some types of
fibre cement tiles from the U.S. ar-
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Kalinger says.
“Often it takes 15 to 20 years to develop a Canadian national standard
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!TH1 290802ON H 004Q!
Product:STAR Date:08-29-2002Desk: NIH-0004-CMYK/27-08-02/19:31:00
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COMPOSITECMYK
THE TORONTO STAR Thursday, August 29, 2002
Choose
your roofer
carefully
F Continued from H1
Important factors for any
new roof components are
weight, fire and wind resistance ratings. Problems with
newer materials can include
such things as cracking, surface crazing (fine surface
cracking), fading, warping and
poor adhesion.
A U.S. research paper has
pointed out that in the roofing
business, guarantees are only
as strong as the company that
issues them and are no substitute for quality products with a
successful history.
The study notes that metal
roofs are known for noise during rain and some fibre-cement
products are not recommended
for locations with freeze-thaw
cycles and snow conditions.
Don Marks, executive director of the Toronto-based Ontario Industrial Roofing Contractors’ Association, also advises
people do their homework
well. That includes researching
the contractor if you’re going to
hire someone to do the job.
“It’s very tough for someone
to select a contractor and decide what type of roof to have.
The Toronto Yellow Pages
probably has more than 500
listings on roofing,” he says.
“There are just too many
nightmares out there.”
Just because your sister got a
great shingle job last year from
a company, it doesn’t mean the
firm will do the same for you a
year later, Marks warns.
“The reason is that with
many companies, their shingler labour changes every
year.”
Homeowners should ensure
that whomever they deal with
has a permanent place of business, has liability insurance
and Workplace Safety and Insurance Board coverage, gives
a detailed written estimate, is licensed by the materials manufacturer to install a particular
product, gives references that
can be checked and has the
proper municipal licences,
where applicable.
As an example of what can
go wrong, homeowners with
flat roofs should be cautious if
contractors want to apply a
two-ply modified bitumen
membrane system that is secured partly with a propanefired torch, Marks says. The
system is associated with a
number of property fires, usually caused by shinglers who
aren’t flat-roof experts, he
adds.
Dominion Roofing, a Toronto-based family business that’s
been around since 1922, has
roof installers with families
that have been doing the job
with the company for two or
three generations, says Norman Shore, Dominion’s residential manager.
A re-roofing job on a threebedroom, two-storey house in
Toronto should cost between
$3,000 and $10,000, he says.
Disposal costs for materials
such as asphalt are rising,
Shore says, and in a $5,500 job,
$2,500 might be the cost of ripping off old shingles and getting rid of them.
Look at paying $2 to $4 a
square foot installed for asphalt
shingles, he says. Metal costs
$4 to $8 a square foot, cedar
wood shakes cost $5 to $7 and
tile or slate is $10 to $18. Copper is about $18 a square foot;
Dominion makes it by hand in
its own fabricating shop.
Shore also warns that the
cheapest contractor may not be
the most economical. The unscrupulous roofer can find a
zillion ways to cut costs, such
as not using galvanized nails or
premium caulking.
Then there are contractor issues of what plywood or fascia
might need replacing, the type
of flashing used as well as roof
vents providing the right
amount of ventilation to maintain a healthy roof.
“A roof should be checked
out once a year and we do this
with roof tune-ups,” Shore
says. “We clean out the eavestroughs, check the flashings,
caulking and replace any missing shingles that might have
been dislodged in a storm.
“A lot of time people don’t
know they have a problem until
water gets inside the house. By
the time that happens, it’s probably been there for a while.
And you might have infestation
by carpenter ants due to dampness retention.”
When it comes to materials,
IKO, EMCO, CertainTeed and
GAF are the four major shingle
makers, Shore says.
“They each have about 20
different styles in different
grades and they offer warranties that can range from 20
years to 50 years.”
A lot of metal panel products
now look like shingles, and in
general, synthetic products are
getting better, Shore says. Every year Dominion gets at least
a dozen sales pitches on new
products; in the past year they
accepted one, the Enviroshake,
a Canadian-made simulated cedar shake that can be installed
with a power nailer.
Last year the Enviroshake
won the first Canadian AgriFood Award of Excellence for
Innovation from the federal
government. Wellington Polymer Technology incorporates
such materials as rubber from
used tires, reclaimed plastics,
hemp and flax fibres into the
shake, produced at a Chatham
plant that opened in May. The
shakes were used to roof the
Guelph Golf and Country Club.
“We have spent over six
years in developing the Enviroshake and once installed, it is
maintenance-free and has a 50year warranty,” says Brian
Eberle, a company vice-president. “The cost is equivalent to
premium red cedar on an installed basis and the product
looks like cedar that’s been
weathered for three or four
years.”
At Avenue Road Roofing’s
head office on Wingold Ave. in
Toronto, there’s a showroom
with examples of roofing, but
Follow
tips to
rooftop
health
BRIAN DEXTER/TORONTO STAR
OPTIONS : Jason Price,
sales manager for custom
homes division of Dominion Roofing, displays
samples of new roofing
products. He’s holding a
cedar shake and roofcap,
while lying in front of
him are, from left, Enviroshake, Royal Plastics
product and slate. At left,
a tile roof on a home in
the Toronto area.
there’s no way to display everything, says Tim Mulroy, residential sales manager for the
company, which roofs 1,500 to
2,000 homes a year.
A particularly good source of
information for those considering roofing with shingles is the
head office and showroom of
Roofmart (Ontario) Ltd., on
Hansen Rd. in Brampton.
Roofmart is a distributor and
supplier of IKO products, and
storage sheds in its yard are
roofed with about 25 different
types of shingles. A showroom
has shingle-related materials
and staff are helpful.
For those looking at metal,
Galvalume is an option.
The metal sheets can be cut
to any length and secured on
strapping over existing shingles.
Rudy Vandenberg Classic
Renovations of Mississauga is
using green ribbed sheets of
Galvalume, supplied by Agway
Metals Inc. of Brampton, on an
1878 farmhouse on Mayfield
Rd., in a southwest corner of
the Town of Caledon.
“This stuff lasts forever, and
when I do my roof on my own
home at Inglewood, I intend to
use it,” says installer Martin
Neufeld.
“It’s more expensive than asphalt shingles for re-roofing,
but for new construction is getting to be competitive with
shingles.”
Unicrete Products Ltd., a
Calgary company, claims its
lightweight concrete roof tiles
deliver the lowest life-cycle
cost, although they initially cost
more than high-end wood.
Roof Lines East Inc. of Oakville
is a local company specializing
in concrete tile roofs.
Royal Building Group Tech-
Internet offers information sources
Web sites on roofing:
n Avenue Road Roofing: www.a-
venueroadroofing.com
Mortgage and Housing Corp.: www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca
n Canadian Roofing Contractors
Association: www.roofingcanada.com
n Canadian Sheet Steel Building
Institute: www.cssbi.ca
n CertainTeed Corp: www.certainteed.com
n DLD Roofing: www.dldroofing.com
n Dominion Roofing: www.don Canada
minionroofing.com
n Enviroshake: www.enviroshake.com
n GAF
Materials
Corp:
www.gaf.com
n Hy-Grade
Steel
Roofing:
www.hygraderoofing.com
n IKO: www.iko.com
n Metal
Roofing
Alliance:
www.metalroofing.com
n Ontario Industrial Roofing
Contractors
Association:
www.ontarioroofing.com
n Perma
Tile Roof Group:
www.permatileroof.com
n Roof
Lines East Inc: www.rooflines.com
n Smart
Roof
Systems:
www.smartroof.com
n Roof
Help, a U.S. site:
www.roofhelp.com
n Royal
Building Products:
www.royalbuildingproducts.com
n Steel Tile Co: www.steeltile.com
n Tile Master Roofing Group:
www.tilemasterroofing.com
n Unicrete
Products
Ltd:
www.unicrete.com
n Vic West: www.vicwest.com
nologies of Vaughan makes
Dura Slate, a roofing-tile system with a 50-year warranty.
It’s lighter than clay or slate
tiles and can be cut with a knife
or saw and nailed.
Royal Building Systems, a division of the company, has a
model home on a site at Highways 7 and 27 in Vaughan.
For metal roofing, Steel Tile
Co. of Innisfil, south of Barrie,
has a wide range of products
made by Stelco and Dofasco.
Hy-Grade Steel Roofing Systems of Guelph has been making an all-Canadian product
since 1979.
Many metal roofs now have
granular coated finishes that
replicate asphalt roofs.
Tile Master Group of Mississauga makes and installs steel
roofs that look like Europeanstyle tile.
The company stresses the
environmental benefits of steel
roofing over asphalt.
Fibreglass shingles may require an asphalt felt underlay
to meet fire resistance ratings.
Some studies show that they
offer greater wind and tear
strength values than traditional
asphalt shingles.
A maximum of three layers
of shingles are allowed under
Ontario’s building code. Yet
many companies insist two
should be the acceptable limit
and won’t shingle a roof with a
third, citing the strain on roofs.
Of course, all roofs require
periodic maintenance and it’s
easy to damage shingle roofs
by walking on them.
Here’s a list of tips, gleaned
from various sources, on how
to tell when your roof needs repairs, along with advice on how
to hire a contractor.
Your roof may need work
when:
n It leaks. In this case, don’t
wait another day before taking
action. Your home could suffer
serious damage.
n Shingles look worn and
cracked and start to curl, or
other types of roof materials
appear shabby.
n You see cracked seals in
flashing — that metal or plastic
sheeting that keeps rain away
from such spots as v-shaped
channels on the roof.
n In the case of a shingle roof,
it feels spongy when you walk
on it. It may have warped or
rotten plywood underneath.
Maintaining your roof:
n Annual maintenance should
include replacing missing shingles, securing and resealing
loose flashings, repairing ridge
caps and sealing around pipes,
air vents, chimneys and in roof
valleys.
n Secure loose nails and eavestroughs and ensure downspouts aren’t blocked.
n Use binoculars to inspect
your roof, although nothing
beats an actual roof walk once
a year and unknown factors exist until you uncover a roof.
n Check the roof for soft spots
and fascia for signs of rotting
wood.
n Check for any drip leaks between the eavestrough and fascia, the wood trim around the
outside edge of the roof. If left
unattended, the problem can
rot wood and even dislodge
eavestroughs.
n Watch for ice dams in winter
— snow that melts and then refreezes at the roof edge can
back up under shingles and
cause leaks. If this happens,
improve insulation and air sealing to reduce heat loss through
the roof.
n Seals are only as good as the
caulking and this is especially
true with metal roofing.
When you hire a contractor
for a roofing job, look at:
n Word-of-mouth recommendation from colleagues, neighbours or friends who have had
similar work done.
n Drive around your community and see whose signs are up
for roofing work and check the
local Yellow Pages.
n Always seek three estimates,
and if the companies you call
don’t send someone to see you
fairly promptly, eliminate them
and call others.
n Seek references that you can
check and ask to view recent
roofing work that the contractors have done.
n Get details of guarantee conditions and specific listings of
what materials (including their
grades) are to be used.
n Once a contractor does a
thorough inspection, ensure
details of work to be done are
specified as well as the cost and
the period of time when work
will be performed. Be sure to
get the final bid in writing.
n Make sure the contract includes removal and disposal of
old roofing and proper site
clean-up.
n Check that the contractor
you hire has liability insurance
and Workplace Safety and Insurance Board coverage and is
licensed by the materials manufacturer to install a certain
product.
— Brian Dexter