Shingle and Flat Roof Replacement in Gainesville, FL, January 2026

What you are looking at

From the front this house reads as a run of shingled gables: painted brick walls, a fieldstone gable on the garage, and cream siding in the smaller gables and on the upper rear wall. The overhead drone photo shows the rest. Behind the front slopes the main roof flattens into a long low-slope section with two chimneys, and a railed deck sits on the roof over the screened porch at the back.

The pitched sections are covered in Owens Corning Duration shingles. The name is legible on a bundle wrapper in a photo Brehm took on the roof during the install. The color is a mix of slate blue, gray and brown with a little tan, and it shifts with the light: cooler where the tree shadows fall, warmer where the sun hits. Along the ridges a ridge vent runs under the cap shingles, letting warm attic air out at the peak, which helps limit heat build-up in a Florida attic.

Shingles are made for steeper pitches, so the shallow rear section and the deck got a sheet roof instead. Photos Brehm took during the work show a blue base sheet going down first, then rolls of granulated cap sheet on top. A cap sheet is the finished top layer of a roll roof; its granules protect the asphalt underneath from the sun, the same job they do on a shingle.

The close photo shows one of the two chimneys: painted brick under a concrete cap, with bright metal flashing wrapped around the base where the brick meets the roof. Several pipe vents come up through the low-slope roof around it. Brown drip edge, the metal strip along a roof edge that steers water away from the trim, finishes the roof edges.

Photos Brehm took during the tear-off show the old shingles stripped down to the plywood, and a fresh sheet of plywood set in among the older decking where it was replaced. The work photos span three days in mid January, and the drone photos were taken a few days later.

The last photo looks at a rear gable with cream lap siding and a louvered vent near the peak, a brown box vent on the slope beside it, and capped shingles along the ridge. Around the house the lot is open lawn edged by tall pines and trees hung with Spanish moss, with woods behind.