Roofing contractors are a dime a dozen and the average contractor is out of business within two years. A roofing contractor that uses cheap equipment says they’re cash flow sensitive and are too scared to invest in their company. While there are many things that separate Roof Life of Oregon from the competition one of the most noticeable ones is the equipment we use. Call 503-925-0125 or fill out a roof inspection request form and see for yourself if Roof Life of Oregon passes the ‘eye test’.

With the weather being nice, and the days being longer, you might have noticed more home improvement activity in or around your neighborhood. Most people think roofing contractors only work in the summer time. However, we perform re-roof jobs along with our maintenance work all year around. Our secret is that we employ policy and procedure to ensure each job is successful and the client receives a superbly constructed roof project.

When your roofing project is coming together it is important to know that each individual component within our roofing system has been selected for their ability to perform within the NW environment. Because we have tested and documented the success of our systems we can provide with confidence Portland’s only life time workmanship warranty. We know that our roofing systems are capable of withstanding variations in temperature from below freezing to well over 100 degrees year in and year out.

One of the areas within our roofing system that we chose to differentiate ourselves from the rest is our underlayment product. While the majority of the contractors are using 30lbs felt paper, which is acceptable, we chose a custom product for its unique properties. Our underlayment is 20X stronger than 30lbs felt paper and offers a 30 year warranty. Knowing there is that much difference in just the underlayment choice you have as a home owner, wouldn’t you like a private consultation so you know what is ultimately protecting your home and family. We think so too. Give us a call (503) 925-0125…

In this video that I created, I’ll show you why having a pre-treated roof with flat grain shakes isn’t any better than a non-treated roof with flat grain shakes.

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I’m on a five year old half inch CCA treated number one Blue Label shake roof. This is the clue that I’d like everyone to get with a pre-treated shake roof. Please require as a customer that the wood be 100% vertical grain, because even a pre-treated flat grain shake is going to fail. This is a crack over a crack, flat grain failure, flat grain failure, flat grain failure, and it makes a big difference. Flat grain failure, this is 100% vertical grain shake, the grain is nice and tight, the grain is about the width of the tip of a pen. Right next to it, is a flat grain shake. In a 100% vertical grain shake you will have none of these, you’ll have all of these. Therefore, you’ll have very, very little repair you’ll have a roof that will last a very long time, super low maintenance, it also happens to be the lowest carbon footprint roof of any type in America. A western red cedar 100% vertical grain will have low maintenance, look gorgeous, and make your home look great. Here we have almost a four in a row crack. One, two, three, four, and that’s what happens with flat grain.

We use the highest grade all-vertical grain shakes for all of our repairs and roof replacements. If you’re tired to having to constantly repair your roof it’s time we introduced you to the vertical grain side of shakes. For more information on the quality of shakes we use, or why you shouldn’t give up on cedar, visit the following pages.

Luckily for you, Daniel gives us a tour on what appears to be a new roof and turns out to be an undetectably bad roof.

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We’re up on the roof now and you can see this roof is basically brand new. It’s definitely under five years old and just right off you can see things still left on the roof from the original roofers. Look at that, there’s a hook blade from the point where they cut it. Nails still sitting up here; I promise you we cannot make this stuff up the things that are done on roofs. First of all, we have this chimney. Part of this roof is one layer, which is this whole section here; the other side is two layers. This is how they did their flashing; they left the old stuff up, and put this peel and stick, which they thought was going to keep the water out, which is obviously not working. You can see the shingles are completely popping up, you see this area for water to go inside; that’s not working. I love this ridge; it doesn’t exist. They didn’t even do a ridge. They ran the first set over, second set over, and just overlapped it over the top with plenty of exposed nails actually lifting up driving the water inside. Unbelievable. It continues on. A wonderful closed cut valley which we would never do, we would always use metal. Exposed nails all over this roof. It gets completely worse. Come on down to these vents. This is how they’re trying to keep the water out. You can see that second layer underneath there, any water that’s traveling down the backside of this vent is going to travel down, right up underneath there under the shingle, and into the house. This was supposed to stop that from happening. They’re all like that. Believe it or not it still gets worse. See that? It’s a low slope roof. That’s roof is only about a 2/12. All the water running down the roof here is supposed to meet a piece of metal that metal is then supposed to go over the top of this roof and push the water to the outside. Guess where all that water is going? Right underneath; completely rotting all of this. This is actually OSV wood right here. This is supposed to be the roof deck. Completely rotten. I’m not even going to walk out on there. I can see the dips in it knowing that it’s dry rot and that, that is completely unsafe to walk on. Not only does the roof have to be replaced, but all that deck has to be replaced. All of it. As I said before, I cannot make this stuff up. This is the kind of shotty work that a cheap contractor is going to put on.

Roof Life of Oregon offers the only Portland Oregon lifetime workmanship warranty. In short, this will never happen with a Roof Life of Oregon roof. To learn more about the Roof Life of Oregon difference visit our roof replacement page.

Think about it…

What could you endure 15% of your yearly total of in less than 60 days?

Your paycheck? Your bills? Your husband or wife’s meatloaf?

If you can’t handle it, why would you expect your roof to be able to handle it?

Now, more than ever, is the time you need to be thinking about your roof. Like your car, which needs regular maintenance including oil changes, your roof should be inspected at once a year to ensure it’s functioning at its highest level possible. Normal weather patterns causes your roof to experience degradation at normal rate. This is using the assumption that you have your roof on a regular maintenance cycle, have the proper roof ventilation, and live in an area without any surrounding trees. If you’re missing one of those three pieces then your roof degradation rate is higher than normal, but can easily be fixed.

If you are not treating your roof every three to five years (every three for architectural shingle and tile, and every five for shake), then you can help extend your roof’s life by treating it with our WPC-R5 or RCC roof cleanser. It’s not necessary, if your roof maintenance company is doing their job, to clean your roof every year. If you have to clean off or treat your roof every one or two years then you’re using the wrong company!

If you are starting to see the granules from your roof in your gutters and your home is scorching in summer and freezing in the winter, then you probably have a roof ventilation issue. All of our roof consultants are trained and qualified to help you reduce energy costs and improve your roof ventilation system. Poor roof ventilation causes 9 out of 10 roofs in the United States to age prematurely. Chances are you probably have a roof ventilation issue too.

If you have your roof maintenance plan and roof ventilation dialed in, you may STILL have issues preventing your roof from lasting as long as possible. ITS ENVIRONMENT. The great northwest and more specifically Portland Oregon is known for their beautiful tree heavy environment. The natural beauty the trees provide can also be a natural terror on your roof. What can you do to prevent them from wrecking havoc on your roof? Having your roof regularly blown. It depends on your environment, but annual to bi-annual blows are typical for heavy tree area homes.

Record rainfall is tough on your roof, but you can still maintain a beautiful looking and working roof with regular roof maintenance, proper roof ventilation, and blowing your roof off regularly if the environment dictates it. The first step to maintaining your roof is requesting a roof inspection. You can request an inspection by calling (503) 925-0125 or filling out our convenient roof inspection form.

Daniel White shows us the initial issue with the valley overflowing with debris.

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Let’s go over here and talk about debris in a valley. This house actually has a metal valley. That’s good. The problem is, see all this debris? This debris is backing up like crazy. It’s very important to have this debris removed off of the house at least once a year. What’s happening is, all this debris is backing up inside this gutter, the water is then working its way back up underneath the shingle on both sides. Underneath there’s actually dry rot going underneath, you can see the drips underneath the gutter, it’s actually starting to rot the wood all underneath here. We’ll get a picture of that in just a minute.

Here is Daniel White showing us the wood rotting from underneath:

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This is the bottom side of that valley we just talked about with all the debris backing up. You look here and you can see the water getting around the outside of that gutter. A little bit of dry rot going on here and quite a bit of water getting in and that’s because of the debris. It’s actually just filling up that gutter; all that water is backing up getting up through the plywood and then coming down on the inside.

Don’t let your roof get to this point. If you can see the debris laying on your roof it’s time for it to be blown or cleaned off. Give us a call at (503) 925-0125 or request a roof inspection today.

Today we’d like to share with you what a quality cedar roofing project looks like. The difference is pronounced and unsurpassed by our competitors.

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Hi this is Patrick Morin, Roof Life of Oregon, its February 12th today 2010, and we’re standing in front of a recently completed shake roof we completed about three or four months ago. This is a tapersawn resawn one inch shake. I wanted to talk to you about the different looks of wood as there are in architectural shingles and tiles and metal. This is an example of a wood roof that has extremely straight lines. You’ll notice how all the keyways are even and there is space so that debris can get out of there, water can traffic out of there. Notice the quality of the shake the shape edges the uniform thickness. Also our roof to wall flashing, you’ll notice we rounded the edges, we cut them into the corners of the siding so that the water can pass by, and so the water can go underneath that siding trim. As we move across looking at this home, its got a unique look, it makes the home unique in its neighborhood. You look at the valley over here that transitions into this front nook, it’s a very uniform valley, very, very, angular. It makes a difference; everything on this roof makes a difference. Here’s what’s most impressive about this roof. Not just the look, not just the quality of wood that can’t be gotten but anywhere else but Roof Life, is that it’s backed by Portland’s only lifetime workmanship warranty. This is a 50 year shake with a lifetime workmanship warranty, not found anywhere else in Portland except Roof Life of Oregon.

As previously stated, you’re not going to find a difference between the roofing materials roofing contractors use. If you want a one inch tapersawn resawn roofing material any roofing contractor can purchase it for you. The difference if going to be in the components and workmanship provided. As Portland’s only lifetime workmanship warranty provider, we challenge you to find a better quality roof than a Roof Life of Oregon roof.

If the difference between completing two and three jobs in one day is the difference between feeding or not feeding your family, you’re going to do everything you can to complete three jobs in a day. Even if that means cutting corners or providing a faulty completed product.

Today I’ll show you a great example of what a typical shyster roofing contractor does and why it’s undetectable to the homeowner.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Patrick Morin, June 8th 2010, we’re on a 20 year old shake roof on Murry Hill, and I want to talk about what happened two years ago. The homeowner told us that a roof maintenance contractor, so to speak, helped them with their roof. I want to show down here, this is a repair they did, looks pretty good, the spacing is good, and as you go up to the top where they blended it into the original roof they’ve top nailed everything. Which is not code, it needs to be blind nailed where the fasteners are underneath this row and then this repair is right underneath this area. This area was like this two years ago, this was just left up here, and sprayed over not thinking anything about it. It’s just basically shot. This roof should have been replaced two years ago. Instead, it was pressure washed and slightly repaired, leaving the homeowner to believe it’s all repaired, and then stained. Another clue, that some of you out there in the greater Portland area will know is whenever a roofing contractor suggests to replace all of the ridge caps, generally you’ll know he’s a shyster. On this roof all of the ridge caps have been replaced so that when the homeowner got home they thought, “Oh, wow that looks wonderful.” But, in reality where the water flows the main body of the roof he left this kind of stuff. So now the homeowner spent all that money and now has to replace the roof just two years later. At Roof Life of Oregon this will not happen. We will not suggest or do anything that won’t help move your roof forward saving you money and time. Allowing you to put your house on the market and get it sold, if that’s what you choose to do, in the middle of our warranty period.

Since 1983, we’ve provided Portland Oregon quality roofing they can count on. At Roof Life of Oregon, you get a dependable, knowledgeable, warranty backed roofing contractor that wont cut corners or pay our employees by the square (we pay by the hour). Don’t take a chance on the low priced shyster roofing contractor. Choose the best, choose Roof Life of Oregon.

It’s ok to have a nice roof. The extra cost spread over 20-30 yrs of enjoyment is a couple bucks a day, less than a cup of coffee. If in the short term you want to sell your home, our warranty goes with it. A nice roof recaptures 88% of its cost in the value it brings to the property, lower end; cost driven, poorly built roofs do not. Let’s face it, a lifetime custom Roof Life of Oregon roof looks better. It’s sure nice to look good, isn’t it?

Do not be fooled by roofing companies putting on really nice roofing material, it’s the installation that makes the difference. If the roofing material is put on like a bunch of junkies, it’s junk. Remember the Jaguar, it earned that reputation. That’s their game to make you think that they’re the same as Roof Life of Oregon by using similar products choices. (Except the shakes where we are the source) In the roofing world great products, workmanship, heart, and procedure is the key to having a successful client base.

Are you aware that production type roofs put on by most roofing contractors in Portland will show the signs of fast installation procedures by the 6th year? You might wonder how I know this. It’s a valid question and so here is the answer. Roof Life of Oregon maintains over 10,000 roofs in the greater Portland area. We have done this since 1983. We track the age, type, and kind of all roofs and have found the same thing as a national research firm found. Production low priced installed roofs show there first problems in the 6th year.

If you have to replace a cheap roof two or three times in a fifty-year period of time, the cheap roof actually costs a lot more. The irony is that it looked cheap and gave the homeowner problems its entire life. Most of the time the material is good, the workmanship is just bad. Every problem this cheap roof will give its owner will be because of workmanship and not the roofing product. In the following pictures, you will see that this economy roofer didn’t order enough ridge caps so he stretched the exposure by 50% and then he still ran out and put on a black ridge to finish. This ridge will leak in windy weather and will need to be replaced prematurely all due to workmanship.

The next picture is this economy roofer did not update the ventilation on this roof. This is the number 1 reason for premature roof failure in America today. This roof will only last ½ as long as it was designed to, based on ventilation workmanship issue only.

Finally look at this valley, it’s called a California valley, and this is a very bad one at that. Notice the loose weave and how they wove it in, it will leak in about 5-6 years and will cost the home owner 100’s of dollars to fix. Inadequate ventilation, stretched ridge caps shingles, and woven California valleys have set this home-owner up for trouble and a big unexpected replacement expense.

If you’d like to learn more about what makes Roof Life of Oregon different from other contractors visit our roof replacement page.

When you choose Cedar Shakes for your home, you’re using the lowest carbon footprint roofing material in the world. Its entire life the tree gave off oxygen while absorbing carbon dioxide. When it became old and inefficient at converting, it falls over and then begins to support a lot of other ecology.

When you compare the amount of energy it takes to mill a shake as opposed to manufacturing composition shingles. This makes a huge carbon foot print and doesn’t stop at the manufacturing either, because most homeowners choose dark tones for their composition shingles the solar refection generates a ton of heat, causing the homeowner to spend money cooling the house.

Sometimes it’s difficult to detect downed trees after 50 years, but as you can see, once unburied and cut into bolts, and milled into roofing material, a 600 yr old cedar tree produces enough high quality old growth, 100% vertical grain shakes for 3-4 homes. These are Roof Life’s of Oregon shakes. These are what you want on your roof. Not only are the shakes of the highest quality but then we have them pre-treated with a wood preservative, and because the treatment is fixed into the wood, the mill then gives you a 50yr. warranty. The final step of bring you this amazing roof is to install them with complimentary components that will last just as long; i.e. stainless steel fasteners, Feltex Underlayment( 50X’s stronger than 30lbs felt normally used for shakes), correct ventilation and a pretreated starter course. This is the best roof offered in Portland from every angle.

It is a well-guarded secret in the roofing world that 98% of all premature roof failures are due to workmanship issues. In the cedar roofing industry it’s a little different in that your roofing contractor cannot only install your roof with poor craftsmanship but also buy crappy, low grade, poorly milled pretreated or raw shakes. No matter how well a shake is treated, it will never last as long as the high end shakes that Roof Life of Oregon offers.

If you’re a homeowner, who currently has a builder grade shake roof, and are sick and tired of taking care of it but you like how good a cedar roof makes your house look and you like the low environmental impact. We have the roof for you. There are a lot of examples of our work all over town and yes, this type and kind of roof will cost more to install. As we looked at the long term costs of roofing in Portland, our high end pretreated roofs will actually save you 30-40% in the next 30 years. And our Lifetime Transferable Warranty will bring you that savings even when you ready to sell. We will explain all the details when we meet with you. We look forward to serving you soon.