Shingle and Flat Roof Replacement in Hawthorne, FL, March 2025

What you are looking at

The first photo looks along the shingled roof toward the water. These are architectural shingles, cut in tabs of different widths, and the colors mix dark brown, chocolate and copper tan, so from the yard the roof reads as one warm brown. A ridge vent runs along the peak under the cap shingles. It is a vented strip that gives warm attic air a way out along the top of the roof.

The second photo is taken from the front edge of the low-slope wing, with the shingled hip roof rising behind it. Shingles are made for steeper roofs, so a shallow roof like this one is usually covered with roll roofing instead. Here it is a granulated sheet in a reddish-brown that sits close to the shingle color, laid in wide overlapping courses. Brown metal drip edge finishes the front edge of the roof in the foreground.

Three close views stay on the shingled roof. One follows the ridge, where the black edge of the ridge vent shows along both sides of the cap shingles. Another looks down at a brown hooded vent set in on the slope just above a run of hip cap shingles. The last is a round vent pipe with a screened top and a ribbed base, with the shingle courses cut and fitted around it.

Photos Brehm took during the tear-off show what sits under the new roof. The original deck is long wood boards, and new plywood sheets were cut in where sections were replaced. On the hip roof the underlayment is a white synthetic sheet; on the low wing a blue base sheet went down first and the roll roofing was rolled out over it. Photos Brehm took on a February visit show blue tarps over part of the old roof.

The lot runs down to a lake, with a small wooden dock, a chain-link fence along the shore and a big oak hung with Spanish moss just past the roofline. A tall green thicket stands behind the shingled roof. Florida sun and summer afternoon storms are hard on any roof, and venting along the ridge helps limit heat build-up in the attic over a long, hot season.