Why Cedar Roof?
It is hard to beat a wood shingle / shake roof in a beauty contest. When first installed the roof has a light brown-reddish color, but then weathers over time and turns to gray or soft silver. Wood shingles and shakes are usually made of some species of cedar, treated pine or spruce. Cedar, however, is the best performing material for making shingles and shakes. Shingles are sawn by the machine and have relatively smooth surface and uniform thickness, but may vary in width. Shakes are manufactured by wood splitting and have a rather rough textured front surface and smooth back.
Beauty is not the only reason why people choose a cedar roofs for their homes. Cedar roof may help to significantly reduce your heating and cooling costs. The cedar roof shingles and shakes with their natural wood fibers act as an additional layer of insulation on your home. Prevention of the heat escape through your roof especially during a cold Canadian winter season could substantially lower your heating costs.
For all the amazing look, cedar shingles and shakes are expensive to install and require some periodic maintenance usually in a form of washing away any mildew or moss, and then re-oiling. Perhaps another obvious downside of the wood shingles we should mention is their vulnerability to fire exposure.
Cedar Roof Installation Tips
Nails and Flashings - A properly installed and maintained cedar roof usually lasts at least 30 to 50 years. In fact, in some cases roof shingles may last longer than nails used for their installation and/or metal flashings. Thus, you have to make sure that high quality galvanized nails are used, when cedar roof is installed. It might be a wise idea to use copper valleys and flashings instead of pre-painted steel as well. Another factor that makes a great difference is how cedar shingles are nailed. When air gun is used many of the shingles could be damaged and split in the future causing the problems. Our company uses hand nailing technique, which proved to be the best in terms of cedar roof performance.
Attic Ventilation - In order to increase the life of your cedar roof, adequate ventilation has to be provided. Installation of extra vents is generally a good idea to facilitate sufficient air exhaust, mainly heat escape from the attic. It is also necessary to check that there is an adequate air intake. For example, make sure that soffit is not plugged by insulation, and that there is enough vented soffit panels or intake vents. The exhaust and intake vents are equally important in providing sufficient air flow in the attic. The air flow allows for balancing the outside and inside temperature, which reduces the temperature difference stress from your roof.
Underlayment - In case of the cedar roof, proper attic ventilation only may not resolve the problem of cedar ventilation completely. Proper underlayment, such as felt paper between every second row of the cedar helps to increase the air flow between cedar shingles and ads additional waterproofing protection. On top of that, to all of our clients we strongly recommend to have cedar breather installed over the entire roof, which helps increasing the life of the cedar roof dramatically. It is also mandatory to have ice & water protection in valleys around dormers, chimneys and 3'-6' up from the eaves. Those are the main areas of the snow collection. However, we strongly recommend installing regular Ice & Water Shield or Grace Ice & Water Shield (higher grade of regular ice & water shield) protection over the entire roof. The proper sequence of underlayment installation is shown on the upper two pictures.
Cedar roof is a great investment in a long run, but only when it is installed properly. Royal York Roofing has a knowledgeable and experienced team of professionals specializing in cedar roof installations and repairs. Our company have successfully completed hundreds of residential, commercial and heritage cedar projects in Toronto and GTA. So, let the experts do the work and get the most out of your investment.
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