Shingle Roof Replacement in The Villages, FL, November 2024

What you are looking at

The first photo stands on one slope and looks up a hip to where it meets the main ridge. A hip is the sloped line where two roof planes meet on their way down to the eaves, and here each one is covered by a row of cap shingles. In full sun the charcoal shingles pick up a slight blue cast from the sky, and a black vent pipe comes through the slope on the left. A photo Brehm took from the street after the work shows a single-story house with pale gray vinyl siding, a low hip roof and a slightly lower hip section over the garage side.

Photos Brehm took before and during the tear-off show what changed. The old roof was a light gray shingle. Once it was off down to the wood deck, a dark membrane went into the valleys first, and gray synthetic underlayment covered the rest, held down with red plastic cap nails. White drip edge, the metal strip that lets water drip clear of the roof edge, was nailed along the eaves.

The long slope in the second photo shows the shingle itself. It is an architectural shingle, built in two layers, so each course reads as tabs in slightly different shades instead of one flat sheet. Close up, the granules are charcoal with lighter gray flecks. The white gutters at the eaves were already on the house in photos Brehm took before the tear-off.

The third photo follows the main ridge. Photos Brehm took partway through the job show a slot cut open along the peak, and the ridge vent now runs over it, its black vented edges showing on both sides under a line of cap shingles. Warm attic air can leave along the peak, which helps limit heat build-up under a dark roof in the Florida sun.

On one slope, three round dome vents sit in a row with a small black exhaust hood beside them. Photos Brehm took during the job show silver metal bases for the dome vents being sealed in before the shingles closed around them. The last photo looks down a hip toward a corner of the roof, past a black vent pipe, to the lawn below.

The houses here sit close together, with palms, clipped hedges and mulch beds, and the neighbors' roofs show up at the edges of the first two photos. The finished roof was photographed in mid November 2024 under a blue sky with scattered clouds.