Roofing Prep Steps

The first thing you need to prepare for is where to place the roofing material that you will be removing. Whether you are doing the roof replacement yourself or hiring a professional roofer, it is your responsibility to make sure that your yard is safe.

Roof Removal
Dump trucks are commonly used to escort the old roofing material from your roof and off your property. Roofers will be pulling up the old roofing material, the building paper, and in many cases the old sub-roof, and tossing them all into the dump truck. Remember there are roofing nails that keep many roofing materials, such as wood and asphalt shingles, in place, and these will be ripped out with impunity and discarded quickly. It is an impossible request to have your roofers keep track of every roofing nail, and it is quite likely that stray roofing nails will end up in your yard around where the dump truck was parked.

A few roofing nails are not going to cause much problem, but if you are wary of this happening you can lay down a tarp around the areas that are likely to catch some of these nails. I don't mean to make too much of this, as most of these nails will be stuck in the shingles, and they will stay in the shingles on the way to the truck. This idea is just about a small case that sometimes happens that was only mention so that you could prepare for all things that might come your way from a new roof installation.

Roofing Materials
Once your roof has been removed and the sub-roof has been reinforced and secured, several bundles of material will be placed on your roof. Sometimes this is done with a crane rather than the old way. The old way is to hike these bundles up the ladder by hand. Not very fun, but this is how it used to be, and still exists as a process even today. Either way, this is the next step. If you already had a space cleared for the dump truck, then you most likely still have a space for a crane for an afternoon, so this shouldn't be a problem. And if the roofers are going to do it the old way, then just be sure to be extra nice to them, as this is not a very fun part of the job.

Roofing Installation
Now comes the roofing installation. The first thing that will happen here is the application of the building paper. This is a very thin black sheet that feels like a rough piece of wool. Building paper can turn water if it happens to penetrate the integrity of the roofing material. This is a quick process, and then the roofing material is applied.

This will be a pretty loud process if you are in the home while it is happening. Many nails will be hammered into the sub-roof, and even though these nails are not long, they are often fired by a nailing gun so there is the additional noise of the sharp gust of air. These nailing guns speed the roofing application up by a significant amount, so your roofers are likely to use one.

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