Roof Replacement in Wood Village, OR
Full Tear-Off Every Time. Ice & Water Shield at Eaves and Valleys. New Pipe Boots. Free Estimates. Licensed OR #241979.
On a Wood Village roof, the count that matters is taken around 10 in the morning, after the tear-off and before anything goes back on. The city's permit page draws its line at the sheathing: a re-roof on a single-unit house needs no permit "when no more than 15% of the sheathing is removed," and needs one "when 15% or more of the sheathing is removed"; townhouses, the page adds, need one regardless.
On a house roof of about 1,500 square feet, decked in the usual 4-by-8 panels, 15 percent is about seven sheets. Seven rotten panels come out and go in the dumpster with the old shingles, and the job is what it was the day before. The eighth, on the city's reading, turns the same job into one that needed a permit before the crew climbed the ladder. The number is not known until the deck is bare, and that is the problem.
The city's line and the state's
Wood Village's rule is its own. The state's test is weight, exempting a re-roof whose new roofing weighs no more than 30 percent of the roof's required live-load capacity, and it requires a permit for a full re-deck, for townhouses and for a handful of other cases. The city's page counts sheathing instead and sets its line at 15 percent, far short of a full re-deck, and the residential code allows a city to apply its own ordinances, so inside Wood Village the city's page governs. Whether the city counts by panel or by square footage of deck is not stated on its page, and VResh Construction asks the building department which it should use ahead of the job rather than guessing on the roof.
Why the eighth sheet is common here
Three in 10 Wood Village homes were built in the 1970s, the largest decade in the city's housing by a wide margin, and roughly one in nine dates from before 1950, including the wartime houses of the Original Village. A 1970s house is on at least its second roof, and what the next tear-off finds under it is the sheathing the last one covered over: delaminated plywood at the eaves where the old gutters overflowed, soft panels along the north valleys, boards that took a nail then and will not take one now. Whether that adds up to seven panels or eight is not something a contractor can tell from the ground.
What can be told is most of it, from underneath. The week before a Wood Village roof VResh goes into the attic with a light and a probe and maps the underside of the deck, stains and softness by rafter bay, then walks the roof and marks the spots that give. The map does not settle the count, because a panel can be worse from above than it looks from below, but it says with fair confidence whether the count will run near the city's line, which is enough to decide what to do about the permit while the dumpster is still a phone call away.
Deciding before the deck is bare
Where the attic map says the count will run near or past the line, the permit is applied for first, through the city's Cloudpermit system, and the tear-off waits for it. Where the map says two or three panels, the roof is opened without one.
If the count then runs past the line anyway, the deck is dried in that day as every VResh tear-off is, and the question of a permit for sheathing already removed goes to the building department that morning, since the city's page does not say how it treats that case; its inspections are included in the permit fee, end with a final, and are booked by three the afternoon before.
That is at least a day with a covered deck and no shingles, which is why the attic visit earns its hour, and why an owner whose attic shows heavy staining can choose the permit up front, for the permit fee, instead of betting on the count.
Serving Portland Metro Area
VResh Construction provides window replacement, siding installation, roofing, dry rot repair and full exterior renovation services throughout the Portland metro area and Southwest Washington.
Portland Metro — Oregon
Southwest Washington
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Roof replacement questions from Wood Village, OR
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We have a wealth of experience working as main building contractors on all kinds of projects, big and small, from home maintenance and improvements to extensions, refurbishments and new builds.
Choose before the dumpster comes
A Wood Village roof starts in the attic, and with the map in hand, the owner chooses whether to pull the permit ahead of the tear-off or only if the count demands it. Call or text (503) 272-6436.