Roof Replacement in Sterling Heights, MI

A house that already wears two layers of shingles can't take a third (the rules are further down this page), so the next roof starts with both layers in the dumpster. That's where the surprises turn up. With two layers on top, nobody has seen the deck since the first roof went on: plank boards with wide gaps, delaminated plywood along the eaves, soft spots where an old leak sat for years. Expect the crew to cut those out before any underlayment goes down. The extra layer shows up in the estimate as more tear-off labor and more disposal weight, and it's fair to ask for both as separate lines.

This is the standard job: the main roof stripped to the deck and rebuilt, one section at a time, with no more opened than the crew can dry in before the end of the day. The order of the layers matters more than the shingle brand. Edge metal goes on at the eaves and rakes following the drip edge rules, the ice barrier runs up from the eave, underlayment covers the rest of the deck, and then the shingles go on, each strip held by at least four nails under the code. Pipe flashings, vents and edge metal that are rusted or damaged get replaced rather than reused, which the code also requires on a reroof (flashing at reroof).

On many ranches and split-levels the garage roof either runs into the house roof or stops against a second-story wall. That joint is where step flashing, a kick-out at the bottom of the wall and the eave ice barrier all meet, and it leaks more often than the open field of shingles does. Under the Michigan code, an unheated attached garage still needs the eave ice barrier. Doing the garage together with the house keeps the shingle color and the flashing in one continuous run. Doing it separately a few years later usually means cutting into the newer roof to tie in.

A detached garage is a small roof with its own math. HomeGuide estimates a one-car garage of about 280 square feet at $1,000 to $1,700 in asphalt shingles or $1,400 to $3,600 in metal. Per square foot that's more than the house, because most contractors set a minimum project fee. A detached building with no heated space is exempt from the eave ice barrier rule. We'd still ask for a strip along the eaves, since it costs little next to the rest of the job.

The code stops asphalt shingles at a 2:12 slope and asks for doubled underlayment anywhere from 2:12 up to 4:12. Some rear porches, sunrooms and family-room additions are framed flatter than that, so at replacement they get a membrane (EPDM, TPO or modified bitumen) and the shingles stop at the change in pitch. The critical detail is the tie-in, where the membrane runs up under the bottom shingle courses. If someone shingled the old porch roof at too low a pitch, that's often the leak you've been chasing. Membrane types and their prices are on the flat roofing page.