Minnesota's Home Remodeling Expert

New EPA lead paint safety rules and regulations

All remodeling jobs on pre 1978 houses must abide by new EPA rules, and sometimes this even includes roofing jobs.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began enforcing lead paint safety regulations on Renovations, Repairs and Painting  jobs (RRP jobs) on pre 1978 houses as of April 22, 2010.  They are commonly referred to as RRP Rules and Regulations.  Your general contractor must be RRP certified by the EPA and at least 1 person on the crew must be certified as well.  This applies to all repair and paint jobs where lead paint is disturbed.

“Pre 1978″ houses affected

Roofing jobs on houses built before 1978 are affected by these new EPA regulations whenever any soffit and/or fascia replacement work is involved..  Not all houses built before 1978 have lead paint.  Your contractor can assume it has lead paint and follow the new regulations, or test the affected area with an EPA approved test kit to determine if there is lead in the paint.

Purpose of regulations related to roofing replacement

The purpose of these regulations is to safely handle, contain and dispose of lead based paint chips and dust created from sawing or sanding lead based paint.  On a roofing job, dust and debris containment can vary from just a large plastic drop cloth, to erecting a vertical plastic wall around the work area.  The degree of containment is left up to the contractor.  If the work does not involve sanding, grinding, sawing or scraping the lead based paint, then no lead containing dust will be created and just the basic dust and debris containment practices will suffice.

If you had ice dam problems last winter, that probably indicates that you have soffit vents that need cleaning.  The most common cause of ice dams on the typical suburban house is plugged soffit vents.  Air is being sucked through the soffit vents 24 x 7 x 365.  After a couple years, tree lint and dust will start plugging up the mosquito screen on the soffit vent.   Once they are plugged with dust, it won’t matter how many attic vents you have, the attic air is stagnant, and will warm up and start melting the snow on the roof, resulting in, you guessed it, ice dams!  You can easily clean out the soffit vents with a whisk broom, a vacuum cleaner or compressed air.  It’s also easy and inexpensive to replace the soffit vents.  This simple yearly maintenance will address many ice dams on a typical suburban home.

A flat roofing system like single ply EDPM rubber membrane is very durable, even allowing foot traffic.  It’s not immune from hail damage, however.  If the hailstones are large enough or the wind is strong enough the EDPM roof membrane can be damaged.  On a roof that is installed with adhesive, hail can damage the bond to the underlayment with leaking problems eventually occurring.

When having your roof replaced, quality of workmanship and safety are two very important considerations.  Never place a pallet load of shingles on your roof in one spot.  If shingles are delivered onto your roof, spread them out across the roof so there is no danger of collapse.  When gathering estimates, ask the contractor about their shingle delivery placement, and confirm that they are a state licensed MN contractor, bonded and insured.

Ridge vents were designed specifically for cathedral ceiling roof construction. In this roof style there is no common attic space between the ceiling and the roof deck. Therefore every space between rafters needs to be vented. A ridge vent will allow ventilation of all spaces between the rafters.
If there is an open attic between the ceiling and the roof deck, turtle type attic vents can provide more than adequate attic ventilation. Typically turtle type attic vents are more cost effective then ridge vents.

Attic Ventilation in MN

Attic ventilation is very important.  In the summer it will cool down the attic space, making it easier to keep the house comfortable with minimal usage of an air conditioner.  The minimum number of both attic vents and soffit vents is the square footage of the attic floor divided by 150.  A 2000 sq ft attic should have at least 13 attic vents and 13 soffit vents.  If the shingles are white that should be adequate for summer cooling.  If the shingles are a dark color I would recommend more.

Ventilation in the Wintertime

It is also necessary to ventilate the attic for winter conditions.   If the air in the attic warms up above freezing, any snow sitting on the roof will start to melt, run down to the overhang where it’s below 32 degrees, and refreeze.  This condition will cause ice dams and icicles.

If there are enough attic vents, ventilation chutes and soffit vents, it will keep the air in the attic below freezing and the snow won’t melt and therefore no ice dam can form.  Ventilation chutes allow the air that comes in the soffit vents to pass unobstructed up into the attic.  There should be a chute every 4 or 5 rafters.  When in doubt, add more.

Step Flashing on a 3 Tab Shingle in Minnesota

Before 1990, most houses were shingled with 3 tab shingles.  Each row of shingles had a 5” exposure to the weather.  An individual shingle measured 12” x 36” but the top 7” of the shingle is covered up by the next row up, so only 5” x 36” is left exposed.   A separate step flashing is installed for each row of shingles where the shingles meet a sidewall.  The flashing is positioned on each shingle so that the shingle on the next row up just covers it up.  If the flashing is placed more than 2” too high it can leak.

Step Flashing on an Architectural Shingle in Minnesota

If you switch from a 3 tab shingle to an architectural shingle the step flashing needs to be adjusted to accommodate the 5 ½” exposure per row of the architectural shingle.  If the flashings aren’t adjusted they will be out of sync with the new shingles and won’t be waterproof.  When the original step flashings were installed, they almost always nailed them to the wall underneath the siding, so they can’t be moved.  Short of removing the siding, there are a couple techniques that can be used to ensure proper flashing against a wall.  Unfortunately, many roofing crews do not understand that an adjustment of some kind needs to be made to accommodate the difference of exposure per row between the 3 tab and the architectural shingles.  Ask your contractor (before you hire him) how he handles this situation.

In recent years the shingle over ridge vent has become all the rage.  I think this is overrated.  The only situation where a ridge vent is necessary is where there is a cathedral ceiling, with the ceiling at the same pitch as the roof.   Since there is no common attic space, a ridge vent is necessary to vent between each rafter.  When reroofing, it’s less expensive to add a few more attic vents than to put a ridge vent on the whole ridge.  A ridge vent is also vulnerable to damage by being stepped.  That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

Ice & Water Shield in Minnesota

Ice & water shield is not the panacea it’s purported to be for preventing leaks due to ice dams.  Many people have come to believe that it will prevent ice dams.  That just “ain’t so.”  In fact, I would say, based on listening to ice dam leak complaints from people who have it on there roof, that there is about a 50% chance it will prevent leaking from ice dams.

In order to solve the problem of leaks from ice dams, you have to eliminate the ice dams – duh!  Ice & water shield is a total waste of money on 95% or more of houses.  Most houses have an attic that can be ventilated.  When the attic is vented adequately, there will be no ice dams, period.  End of story.

Now, for the rest of the story…

On a house where there is no way to ventilate the space between the ceiling and the roof deck, ice & water shield will provide the cheapest solution to leaks from water backing up in back of an ice dam.  However, you will need three, count ‘em, 3 layers of ice & water shield to be sure that the standing water does not leak through.

Isn’t it a shame that the building inspectors never have enforced long standing ventilation codes, making it possible for the ice & water manufacturers to put pressure on the government bureaucracy to create codes to require that all houses have to have ice & water shield? And you know what?  They still don’t enforce the ventilation codes, and this unnecessary and expensive product only works maybe 50% of the time.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.