Have you ever considered replacing a roof yourself? Or do you want to know more about how asphalt shingle roofs are installed? This post will show you how I removed the old roofing on the main fixer upper house at One Hundred Acres Home and completely installed a new DIY asphalt shingle replacement roof myself! Save a ton of money and get a good workout with DIY roof replacement.
When we closed on the home purchase, the home insurance company came out for an inspection and noted that the roof shingles needed replacement due to a significant loss of granules in the asphalt shingles. The chimney flashing was also rusting, resulting in a line of red rust running down the roof from the chimney. You can see it in the before photo below.
I did a quick inspection and discovered that the roof already had two layers of shingles in place. That’s the maximum number of shingles layers we’re allowed to have. So, it looks like this roof is getting a full DIY roofing tear-off and replacement!
Ladder Safety:
Before we jump too far into things, refresh yourself on some ladder safety. You future self may really thank you. Also consider getting a ladder stand off stabilizer or clamping your ladder to the fascia or soffit board to help keep it in place.
Asphalt Roofing Tear Off:
How does one tear off asphalt roof shingles? With muscle, sweat, and leverage!
Roofing is placed from the bottom up, so you want to remove it in the opposite way, from the top down. First, start by using a crowbar to remove the ridge shingles. Once the rows of standard shingles are exposed, I found it easiest to use a roof tear off tool called a shingle stripper. It has smaller teeth that also grip the roofing nails to help pull them up easily. There will be a TON of nails everywhere….so it might be a good idea to get a rolling magnetic pickup. It is really helpful for finding nails slightly buried in loose earth.
My husband quickly grew concerned for my safety and bought me a roof harness safety kit. With the ridge shingles off, I screwed the roof harness in place and wore that harness from that point forward whenever I was on the roof. Here I am removing the old satellite dishes. You can see I am wearing a yellow harness. The yellow rope ties me back to a central roof anchor. Let’s be honest, roofing is dangerous work! So I strongly recommend a safety harness if you’ll be doing a DIY roof replacement.
I kept at it with the shingle stripper until all roof shingles were on the ground. It took about 3 days with me working in the morning and after the heat broke in the evenings. Not going to lie, it is hard work. But, like I mentioned, it’s a great workout. I could feel my muscles getting stronger each day. Here is the roof with the shingles off.
I came back the next day to clean it up a bit and to tear off the siding on the chimney. It all needs replacement. Here is the cleaned up demo where you can see the roof sheathing is actually is good shape! I was so so so happy to find no areas of rot. No sheathing needed to be replaced. Hurray!
Dumpster Rental:
Our local waste facility rents out and delivers dumpster debris boxes. So I called them up and had a small one delivered. Make sure to tell them you will be throwing old asphalt shingles in the dumpster boxes because the shingles are quite heavy. My waste facility only allows shingles in their smallest boxes to avoid overloading their trucks. Here is a photo of the old shingles ready to get whisked away.
Roof Replacement Sheathing Inspection:
The local building department requires an inspection of the exposed roof sheathing when doing a roof tear off and replacement. Our county would have waived this inspection IF the work was done by a licensed roofing contractor. Since I am the Owner Builder in this roof replacement, we need the inspection and approval of the roof sheathing before moving forward.
Thankfully, the inspection passed on the first go, and we are cleared for roofing! Be aware of permit and inspection requirements before you start any projects. Usually you can simply give your local building department a call.
Roofing Basics:
Disclaimer: I’m showing you how I installed this roof for informational purposes only. Please do you own research and make sure you understand how all roofing parts work together before attempting your own roof. I learned most of what I do from this great roofing installation guide from GAF Roofing.
Remember this one rule of thumb with roofing: Upper sections overlap lower sections!! This way, as water flows down-slope, it will always stay above the roofing. Got it? Cool. That’s the main thing you need to know. Remember it!
Drip Edge:
Start with installing your 2 inch x 2 inch minimum drip edge along the eaves. This is very bottom element so it needs to be installed first. That way, upper elements overlap it! Leave the gable or rake drip edges alone for now.
Underlayment Ice & Water Barrier:
The roof needs a protective layer called an underlayment before laying down the asphalt shingles. There are many products out there that will work. This will be my actual home, so I opted for some more modern products that provide more protection around the critical areas the roof. For this roof, critical areas are basically the whole perimeter and the chimney. The roof perimeter is critical as ice damns can build up there and wind-driven rain can be pushed under the shingles along the roof edges. This sticky layer helps keep water out.
The most protective underlayment (and most expensive) is a sticky asphalt-based, peel-and-stick, underlayment referred to as Ice and Water barrier or Stormguard. It comes in long, heavy rolls with the sheet about 3 feet wide. I measure out the length I need on the ground and hoist the heavy cut section to the roof. The full roll was too heavy for me to manage on the roof. Just remember to cut the section slightly longer than you need. You can always remove the excess once it’s up.
Here is the ice and water barrier on the front section of our roof replacement. You can see I added new sheathing to the chimney and extended the ice and water barrier up the sides to provide extra water protection.
Here is the back side of the roof. I still need to install the ice and water barrier on the left gable, but you get the idea.
Chimney Cricket:
A chimney cricket is placed on the upper roof side of a chimney to divert water down the roof and keep it from pooling at the chimney wall. Ours did not have one, so I built a small cricket out of 1/2″ plywood and angled 2×4’s screwed down to the roof framing. Then I covered in it ice and water barrier to provide that extra protection. Here is my covered chimney cricket. Isn’t it kind of cute?
Underlayment Feltbuster:
Next, I covered the remaining roof sheathing with a modern, synthetic roofing underlayment called FeltBuster from GAF. This is NOT peel-and-stick, so it needs to be nailed down with roofing nails. Read the product directions for nail spacing. This overlaps the lower peel-and-stick underlayment.
Here is the roof with the full underlayment installed. It is slightly bunched at the center of the ridge where the roof anchor is as I didn’t want want to remove and re-install the anchor just yet.
If you look closely (click on the photo to expand it) on the gable rake (edge of the roof), you can see I installed the gable drip edge. The drip edge goes OVER the underlayment on gable rakes instead of under as you saw on the eaves. This is to prevent sideways wind-driven rain at the gable from getting under the underlayment.
Roof Replacement Asphalt Shingles:
Did I mention it gets hot in the summer here? Yeah, it gets uncomfortably hot with 100 degree F days. So while I love a dark roof, I chose form over function for our roof replacement and went the the whitest asphalt shingles I could find, Shasta White laminated architectural roof shingles from Owens Corning. They are “cool-rated” and “energy efficient” when used on a standard home. Hopefully this will help keep our home comfortable in the summer.
Follow the directions on shingle package or from the manufacturer for proper installation based on your area’s windspeed. You can use a nail gun to help things go faster. But I didn’t have one on-hand, so I hand-nailed those shingles in place! You can do it. It takes a little longer but really isn’t that bad.
Here is a progress photo of the shingles. I work both sides of the roof, whatever happened to be in the shade at the time.
Just keep going until you get to the top! This photo shows how I wrapped the shingles over the ridge once I got to the top. There was lots of overlap along the ridge. That will help keep water out!
Chimney Flashing:
Remember the line of rust on the old roofing from the old chimney flashing? Well, it was a galvanized roof flashing that was past its prime. I want to avoid rusting all together so I am using aluminum flashing along the chimney.
However, mixing metals can lead to metal corrosion, so I must use aluminum nails with the aluminum flashing. No problem, I was able to find both at Lowes. Here is the skirt flashing along the bottom of the chimney made from aluminum roll flashing. *Spoilers* that you can see the house wrap on the chimney wall. The flashing extends up underneath that so the house wrap drips over it.
Exposed nail heads are covered with a high quality exterior grade caulk.
I used step aluminum flashing and nails along the chimney sides. Here is a good tutorial to explain step flashing with graphics.
Then, I continued the step flashing around the corner and over the chimney cricket. You can also see that the roof shingles are rotated over the small ridge of the cricket.
Ridge Shingles:
You can buy shingles specifically shaped for the ridge called Hip & Ridge Shingles to install along the very top of the roof. I think they look nice and decided to splurge a little since I saved so much doing this roof replacement myself. Here is a photo of the completed cricket and ridge shingles. The special ridge shingles are on the right.
Here is a photo of the ridge shingles along with various tools I kept in a bucket to keep everything together.
That’s it folks. We’ve completed a DIY roof replacement! Here is the finished roof!
Here is the completed roof in the daylight with more progress on the chimney walls.
I should mention that you may need a final inspection to close out the roof permit. I am happy to report that we passed final inspection with no comments. Woohoo! Now onto the next project of repairing the chimney cap. Let me know in the comments below if this post was helpful or if you have any questions.
