Shingle Roof Replacement in Gainesville, FL, April 2025

What you are looking at

The first photo looks across the main roof from beside a hip. Architectural shingles, sometimes called dimensional shingles, are built from two bonded layers, which is what gives the surface its staggered, patchwork look. In Brehm's photos from the street this blend reads as a dark gray. Up close it mixes light gray, tan and charcoal. A large black hooded vent sits right next to the hip, a rounded black vent hood sits in the middle of the slope, two vent pipes stand farther back, and a pair of box vents line up near the top of the roof.

The second photo follows a hip ridge, with the front yard off to the side. Hip and ridge caps are the thicker shingle pieces folded over the peak, and they cover the seam where two slopes meet. Past the roof edge the photo shows the lawn, the street, a palm and several tall pines.

The chimney is a white boxed chase clad in siding, with a metal cap on top. Photos Brehm took during the tear-off show a small cricket being framed from lumber on the uphill side of the chimney and then covered with new plywood. A cricket is a little peaked ridge that splits rainwater around a chimney so it does not sit against the back wall. In the third photo the shingles step up over that cricket, and new metal flashing is bent to match its peak along the chimney base.

The fourth photo is a closer look at a hip, where the cap shingles overlap one another all the way down the line. The fifth shows one of the roof vents, a black stack with a slotted top set into a black base. Photos Brehm took during the job show black flashings going on over the vent pipes and being sealed before the shingles were laid around them.

Brehm also photographed what is now under the shingles. With the old brown three-tab shingles off, several sections of the plywood deck were cut out and replaced with new sheets. The deck was then covered in synthetic underlayment, a woven sheet that sits between the wood and the shingles, and white metal drip edge was nailed along the eaves. Drip edge is the bent strip at the roof edge that helps guide water off the roof and away from the fascia board.

Gainesville gets strong sun, summer afternoon storms and hurricane season, and the edges, vents and chimney are the usual weak spots on any shingle roof. On this house those are the places with new metal, new flashing and fresh sealant.