Roofing — Coordinated Under One Lead, From Tear-Off to Ridge Vent

What this work involves

A roof on a Minnesota house is a system, not a layer of shingles. Under the shingles sit the underlayment, the self-adhering ice barrier along the eaves and in the valleys, the drip edge, the starter course, and the flashing at every place the roof meets something that is not roof: a wall, a chimney, a dormer, a plumbing vent, a skylight. Above the shingles sits the ventilation, intake at the soffits and exhaust at the ridge, that decides whether the attic stays cold in January. Below all of it is the deck, which is either sound or is not.

The work Frasch Construction coordinates covers the situations a homeowner actually meets: a re-roof at the end of a shingle roof's life, the new roof over an addition or a new build tied into the existing one, the repair after a hailstorm or a winter of ice dams, a low-slope membrane over a porch or a shallow addition, standing-seam metal where the owner wants it, and the chimney and wall flashing that a previous roofer reused when it should have been replaced.

Roofing is also where several trades meet. The rafters or trusses come from framing, the insulation and air sealing at the attic floor decide whether the roof ices, the siding has to lap over the step flashing, and the gutter has to sit under the drip edge rather than behind it. On a Frasch Construction project the roofer arrives inside that sequence rather than outside it.

Riley's approach

Riley performs the carpentry trades himself. Roofing is not one of them, and he does not pretend otherwise: the roof is performed by the roofer he uses, brought in at the best possible price and scheduled under his lead, with the permit pulled under the project. You hold one contract and one phone number. Hire him and relax — he'll take care of the rest.

What Riley brings to a roof is the sequence and the details around it. He plans the tear-off against the weather and the rest of the job, decides with you what the deck gets if rot turns up, and makes sure the framing, the insulation and the siding are ready for the roofer instead of waiting on him. Where a roof is outside what is coordinated here — slate, clay tile, a commercial flat roof — that is said up front with a pointer to the right specialist. Riley tells you plainly when a job is not a fit for him.

He built his own home from the ground up, so he has stood under his own roof through a Minnesota winter and knows which details keep the water out and which ones only look like they do. The roofer's work gets looked at on the deck, before the shingles cover it, rather than trusted on the invoice.

Technique and craft

A proper re-roof starts with a tear-off to the deck. Shingling over an old layer hides rotted sheathing, telegraphs every ridge and cup through the new roof, and the building code does not allow a third layer in any case. With the deck bare, soft or delaminated sheathing is replaced, loose nails are pulled or set, and the deck is swept before anything self-adhering touches it.

Then the layers go on in order. Drip edge at the eaves, ice barrier over it, underlayment lapped over the ice barrier, then drip edge at the rakes over the underlayment. The ice barrier runs from the eave edge to a line well inside the exterior wall, up every valley, and around chimneys and skylights. Starter strip with its adhesive at the edge, then shingles nailed on the manufacturer's line with the number of nails the wind rating calls for — six rather than four where the exposure demands it.

Flashing is where roofs fail, so it is replaced rather than reused. Step flashing at every course where a roof meets a sidewall, counterflashing let into a mortar joint at a chimney rather than caulked to its face, a cricket behind any chimney wide enough to hold snow, kick-out flashing where a roof edge ends against a wall so water goes into the gutter instead of behind the siding, and pipe boots that will not split in the cold. Ridge vent goes on last, cut through the deck so it actually exhausts, and only after the soffit intake it depends on has been confirmed open.

Special considerations in Minnesota

Ice dams are the Minnesota roof problem, and they are a heat problem before they are a roofing problem. Warm air leaking into the attic melts snow from below; the meltwater runs to the cold eave and freezes; the dam backs water up under the shingles. The roofer's answer is the ice barrier, a self-adhering membrane that the state code requires from the eave edge to at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line, so that backed-up water lands on membrane rather than on bare deck. The house's answer is air sealing and insulation at the attic floor, which Riley plans with the insulation crew at the same time.

Ventilation does the rest. The code's baseline is one square foot of net free vent area for every 150 square feet of attic floor, or one for every 300 when the intake and exhaust are balanced between the soffits and the ridge. That balance is the point: exhaust with no intake pulls conditioned air out of the house, and intake blocked by insulation stuffed into the eaves does nothing. Baffles at every rafter bay keep the soffit vents open above the insulation.

Snow is a structural load here. The ground snow load for the metro is set at 50 pounds per square foot, and it is why a roof over an addition is framed to the same design the main roof carries, why a lower porch roof under a taller one is built for the snow that slides onto it, and why a roof that has been sagging under old layers gets looked at from the attic before it gets a new one. Hail comes through most summers too, which is why impact-rated shingles are worth a conversation. Most cities in the west metro and Wright County permit and inspect a re-roof, and some want the ice barrier seen before it is covered; the permit is pulled under the project and the inspections are scheduled into the sequence.

Complete transparency, and a plan that bends to you

You get a written scope for the roof as its own line: tear-off or not, the ice barrier and underlayment, the flashing being replaced, the ventilation being added, the deck allowance, and what is excluded. A free estimate first; if interests align, a free final estimate and contract are sent. Transparent pricing. No surprise bills.

A roof is a place where the house surprises people. Rotted sheathing at the eaves, a second layer nobody mentioned, a chimney with no cricket and a crown that has been leaking, a bath fan venting into the attic. Any change gets priced in writing, with the schedule effect, the day it comes up. Scope is modifiable on the fly with no hassle, and nothing proceeds without your say-so.

And you get one person to ask. The roofer, the insulation crew and the carpenter closing up the fascia are on one schedule, so the gap between them is Riley's problem rather than yours.

Where Frasch Construction does this work

Frasch Construction is based in Rockford, Minnesota, and coordinates roofing across the same 82-town territory as everything else it does: from Rockford and the Wright County ring, including Delano, St. Michael, Monticello and Albertville, through the Lake Minnetonka belt, including Orono, Wayzata, Minnetrista and Excelsior, and the west metro, including Plymouth, Maple Grove, Minnetonka and Edina, to Minneapolis and St. Paul, and out to the farther suburbs such as Woodbury, Lake Elmo, Eagan and Lakeville.

The full roster of towns, each with its own page, follows this article.