South Brunswick Roofing treats cedar shake as a wood problem before it is a roofing problem. Moisture ages wood from the inside: it wicks into end grain, softens the felt and underlayment, and freezes inside the shakes until the grain splits.
Hot humid summers with frequent thunderstorms, Nor'easters bringing heavy rain and high winds, and snow and ice accumulation in winter months all push that cycle along. A cedar roof that dries out between storms will outlast one that sits wet under a clogged gutter.
On a restoration we strip blistered, buckled, and split shakes, check the roof deck, plywood sheathing, and OSB for rot, then rebuild from the substrate up: ice-and-water shield at the eave, synthetic underlayment across the field, roofing felt under the wood where the building code asks for it.
- Cedar shake and wood shake get re-nailed with ring-shank nails through a starter course and staggered field courses, never face-nailed where a rusted head bleeds down the wood.
- Low-slope sections like a porch, a dormer, or a garage take a standing-seam metal panel, a modified bitumen membrane, or a TPO or EPDM single-ply rather than cedar that will rot.
- Slate, clay tile, and concrete tile each have their own repair path, since their weight and fasteners share nothing with a wood roof.
- Three-tab shingle and architectural shingle sections are matched by profile and color, so the roofline never reads as patched from the street.
- Copper or aluminum drip edge sits over the fascia at the eave and rake, and a coated, algae-stained shingle on a north slope stops the black streaking people blame on dirt.
- Step flashing, counter-flashing, apron flashing, chimney flashing, and boot flashing get a thin bead of sealant or mastic only at a hidden lap, plus fresh caulk at the skylight curb.
- Pipe boots and vent boots take new neoprene collars; a cracked boot is the most common single-source leak we find on a roof inspection.
- Ridge cap, ridge vent, and soffit vent work as one system, and added insulation with an attic fan keeps a wood roof from cooking in July.
- Ice-and-water shield at the eave and valley, a vapor barrier over the decking, and a snow guard above the gutter share the freeze-thaw load.
- A tear-off goes into a dumpster on the drive; we keep the ladder and scaffold off the gutter line, and everyone on the roof is clipped to a safety harness.
Here is what we look for when we walk a wood roof, and what tells us whether it can be mended or has reached end-of-life wear.
- Shakes that cup or curl have lost their overlap, and rain now reaches the underlayment instead of running off.
- Moss and lichen hold moisture against the wood through a humid summer, which is how rot starts at the butt end.
- Dark staining near a valley or chimney flashing usually means a leak has been seeping for a full season, not a week.
- Shakes that snap instead of flex under finger pressure are dried out, and the decking below is worth pulling up to check.
- Wood chips and debris in the gutter after a storm tell you the field courses are eroding from the top down.
Cedar is not the cheapest roof and it is not always the right one. On a low pitch, or on a home where snow sits for weeks, a metal panel or a good asphalt shingle holds up longer for less money, and we will tell you that.
