The Roofing Learning Center

Twenty two lessons on roofing, free, with nothing to sign up for and nothing being sold at the bottom of any of them.

This is the course we wish every homeowner had taken before calling a roofer, including before calling us. It covers how a roof actually keeps water out, how to read your own roof safely from the ground, how roofing is priced, how an insurance claim works, and how to check whether a contractor is real.

No catch. There is no email form on these pages, no gated download and no call to action at the end of a lesson. Lesson 18 tells you how to check a contractor and the checks work on us exactly as they work on anybody else. That is deliberate.

How a Roof Works

Six lessons on what is up there and what each part does. Start here if you have never thought about a roof before.

Lesson 1

The Parts of a Roof, Named

A roof has about fifteen named parts, and knowing six of them is enough to read any estimate you will ever be

Lesson 2

How Water Actually Gets In

A roof does not keep water out by being sealed, it keeps water out by overlapping, and every leak is a place

Lesson 3

Roof Slope, and Why It Decides Everything

Roof slope is written as rise over twelve, so a six in twelve roof climbs six inches for every twelve inches

Lesson 4

What Is Under Your Shingles

The layers under the shingles are what stop an Iowa ice dam, and they are also the layers a cheap bid quietly

Lesson 5

Flashing, the Part That Fails First

Flashing is the metal that seals every place a roof meets something else, and it is responsible for more

Lesson 6

Ventilation and the Attic You Never Look At

Attic ventilation is a continuous path from the soffit vents to the ridge, and breaking any part of that path

Reading Your Own Roof

Six lessons on looking at your roof and knowing what you are seeing, safely, from the ground and from the attic.

Lesson 7

How to Inspect Your Roof From the Ground

You can learn most of what matters about your roof from the ground with a pair of binoculars, and you should

Lesson 8

How Old Is My Roof

You can usually find your roof's true age in public permit records in about ten minutes, and it is

Lesson 9

What Hail Damage Looks Like

Hail damage is a round bruise with the granules knocked off, it is random rather than patterned, and it

Lesson 10

What Wind Damage Looks Like

Most wind damage is a broken seal strip, so the shingle falls back into place and the roof looks perfect

Lesson 11

Reading a Ceiling Stain

The timing of a ceiling stain tells you more than its location does, and a good share of them turn out not to

Lesson 12

Ice Dams, Start to Finish

An ice dam is caused by heat escaping into your attic, which is why the same few houses on a street get one

Money, Paper and People

Six lessons on price, estimates, warranties, insurance, permits and how to check whether a contractor is real.

Lesson 13

How Roofing Is Priced

Roofing is priced per square, which is one hundred square feet, and once you know your square count you can

Lesson 14

How to Read a Roofing Estimate

A complete roofing estimate names twelve specific things, and a one page bid with a single number on it is

Lesson 15

Roofing Warranties, Plainly

There are two separate warranties on a roof, the manufacturer covers the shingles and the roofer covers the

Lesson 16

How a Storm Insurance Claim Works

On a storm claim the homeowner files and nobody else can, the first check is deliberately smaller than the

Lesson 17

Permits and Code, Iowa and Illinois

A roofing permit exists so an inspector who does not work for your contractor looks at the work, and it is

Lesson 18

How to Check a Contractor Before You Sign

Eight checks, fifteen minutes, all free, and they eliminate most of the ways a roofing job goes badly

Choosing and Living With a Roof

Four lessons on picking a material, deciding whether to repair, what happens on the day, and keeping the new one alive.

Lesson 19