Mobile has three seasons: hot, hurricane, and Mardi Gras, and all three are rough on a roof.
Half the calls that come into our siding installation company start with a brown ring on a bedroom ceiling, which is why we do roofing too. Water that wrecks a wall almost always got in up top first. So we go up before we quote, and a real roof inspection means we walk it, lift shingles, and look at the flashing where the chimney meets the deck, not squint at it from the driveway on Airport.
What our roofers won't do: show up at dark, lean on you for a signature, or leave nails in the grass where your dog walks.
Below is how the work goes, what moves the price, and what folks ask before booking. Ring me at (251) 551-3653.
Roof Inspection
An inspection isn't me squinting up from the driveway and nodding. I'm on the roof with my hands on it, checking the sealant strips on the shingles, the flashing at chimneys and sidewalls, and the rubber boots around your plumbing vents, which crack and leak somewhere around year eight or ten in this heat. Then I'm in the attic with a flashlight looking for daylight, staining on the underside of the deck, and any spot that feels soft underfoot.
Forty-five minutes to an hour on most single-story homes in Midtown.
Because our siding installation company started on walls long before we ever set foot on roofs, I also check where roof meets wall, which is where half the leaks I chase actually begin. Get a roof inspection each spring and again once hurricane season lets go of us.
Roof Fixers
Call a man a roof fixer and you picture a bucket of tar and a good attitude. That is how most bad patches start. A smear of roof cement over a cracked pipe boot buys you a season, maybe two summers of afternoon storms rolling in off the bay, and by then the decking underneath has gone soft and the fix costs you a sheet of plywood instead of a boot.
When my roofers chase a leak, we pull shingles back and read the flashing, the valley metal and the nail line. Half the calls we run in Midtown are wind-lifted ridge caps or step flashing somebody caulked instead of weaving in properly. Most of those we close out in a morning.
We grew out of our siding installation company, so we read wall and roof together. Water rarely respects the line between them.
Roof Installation
Every roof installation we do starts with a full tear-off down to bare deck, because that's the only way to see what the last crew covered up. Around here it's usually soft plywood by the chimney, or a valley that's been damp since the last tropical system came through. Bad sheathing gets cut out and replaced before anything new goes back on.
Then synthetic underlayment, drip edge, valley metal, and six ring-shank nails per shingle instead of four, set flush. Six is slower than four, which is exactly why plenty of local roofers stop at four. Overdriven nails are how a new roof ends up in your neighbor's azaleas.
Most single-story houses off Old Shell run two to three days. Steep pitch, a cut-up gambrel roof, or a mess of pipe boots and skylights adds a day, and those same things move the roof cost.
Roof Maintenance
Twice a year beats once every ten. Spring, before hurricane season starts June 1, and again in late fall once the live oaks and pines have finished dumping on you. Roof maintenance is mostly small stuff done on time: clearing valleys and gutters, resealing around chimneys and skylights, replacing the neoprene pipe boots that dry-rot and split around year eight or ten, and tightening exposed fasteners on metal panels that back out a little every summer.
Skip it and the water finds the cheap way in. Clogged gutters push water back under the shingle edge, the fascia goes soft, and now you're paying for wood, not caulk.
Yes, our siding installation company runs a roofing crew too, and those roofers will tell you honestly if a repair buys you five more years or two.
Zinc Roofing
Zinc is the quiet one in the metal family. It weathers into a soft gray patina that heals its own scratches, and a properly detailed zinc roof will outlive the mortgage, sixty years and up. Salt air off the Bay doesn't chew on it the way it chews on cheap coated steel.
What kills zinc is the underside. Trap moisture back there and it corrodes from below, so we run a ventilated batten or a drainage mat instead of laying panels flat on felt and hoping. Metals matter too. Zinc runoff into aluminum gutters, or copper sitting anywhere uphill, and you get galvanic pitting. Panels move with heat, so clips and expansion room aren't optional.
A zinc roof installation on a typical Midtown house runs about a week, longer with dormers and valleys.
Zinc walls are something our siding installation company hangs as well, so wall to roof transitions get detailed by the same hands.
What the job involves
What the job involves is a real tear-off. We strip the old shingles down to bare deck, every layer, because a new roof laid over an existing course hides the soft plywood that sent you hunting for local roofers to begin with. Sheathing that flexes underfoot gets swapped, usually half inch CDX. Then synthetic underlayment, peel-and-stick membrane in the valleys and around every penetration, fresh drip edge, new pipe boots. Boots go first here.
The rubber splits after seven or eight summers of sun and starts dripping down a bathroom wall the next time a squall parks over Mobile for an afternoon.
A single story ranch runs two to three days if the sky behaves. Steep pitch, dormers, cut-up valleys and three layers to haul off all stretch that, and they move the roof cost too.
We came to residential roofing sideways, finding rot where wall meets roofline on siding jobs, so that flashing gets rebuilt rather than pointed at.
What it costs
Here's how the number moves. Pitch, how many layers of old shingle come off, valleys, pipe boots, and whether the decking under it all survived the last named storm. That's why I won't quote an average roof replacement cost over the phone and pretend it means anything for your house. We climb up, do an honest roof inspection, and hand you a written figure.
Call me at (251) 551-3653 and we'll get you on the schedule for roofing quotes on your own place.
Siding I can be plainer about, since our siding installation company measures both while we're up there. Mid-grade vinyl runs around $3.43 a square foot installed in Mobile, fiber cement and stucco climb well past that, and a full wrap on a 50-foot ranch usually falls between $3,000 and $7,000.
When roofing is the wrong fix
Sometimes roofing is the wrong fix, and I would rather lose the sale than put a new roof on a problem that lives in the wall. If the brown stain runs down under a window while the decking overhead is bone dry, shingles are not your trouble. That is flashing and siding, and a morning of siding repair around the corner boards ends it.
Three tabs lifted after a squall? That is a patch, not a tear off. Paying for a whole system when what you needed was an hour of roof maintenance is a rough trade, and the size of the roof, the pitch and how many layers are already up there are what push that bigger number around anyway.
When the rot shows at the gable ends, it is soft wood siding doing it, not the roof. We pull those runs and put back vinyl siding or fiber cement composite siding. Plenty of folks call about residential roofing and leave with a siding plan instead.
Why choose us for this
You've got a ring on the ceiling after the last squall rolled in off the bay, and what you want is to hire somebody once and stop thinking about it.
Numbers that hold: What we write on the estimate is what lands on the invoice, unless you change the scope.
One roof at a time: We don't tear off yours and disappear to a job in Spring Hill for three days.
No signature today: Our roofing quotes stay good while you think it over.
Clean yard: Magnet passes over the grass and the driveway before we pull out.
We're rarely the low bid, on purpose. Proper underlayment, flashing at every wall and chimney, and a real roof inspection first takes hours some crews skip.
Nine years of this, roofs and walls both, since our siding installation company handles the whole envelope. The estimate costs nothing and books nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Can you replace just one section of roof, or does the whole thing have to go?
Often just the section. If the decking is sound and we can match the shingle, a slope repair holds fine for years. But once three or more leaks show up on different planes, patching is throwing good money after bad, and a full roof installation makes more sense.
What makes one roofing quote higher than another?
Square footage, pitch, layers to tear off, and material. A simple ranch off Airport Boulevard goes faster than a steep cut-up gambrel roof with four valleys. Rotten decking found after tear-off moves it too, and any roofer company that swears it won't is guessing.
How do we get started?
Call our siding installation company at (251) 551-3653 and we'll book a roof inspection, usually within a few days, before storm season gets busy.
Contact Mobile Siding Pros now
Contact us now, while that ceiling stain is still the size of a saucer and not a dinner plate. When you get through, tell me the age of the roof, what's on it, tar shingles, standing seam metal, clay tile, and which room the water shows up in. That's usually enough for me to tell whether you're looking at a repair or a new roof before anybody sets a ladder against the fascia.
We do residential roofing services on the ordinary low hips out around Tillman's Corner and on the odd gambrel roof with a dormer punched through it, and since the same outfit hangs your siding, you're dealing with one roofing company instead of two sets of trucks. Reach us at (251) 551-3653, weekdays nine to five, and a message left after that gets returned. Licensed, bonded and insured, certificate on request.