3537 Mildred Avenue

CertainTeed Landmark Pro Weathered Wood — 3537 Mildred Avenue, Rochester Hills

Rochester Hills roof replacement on Mildred Avenue. This was a full tear-off and re-roof on a 1,720 square foot home, and it was one of those jobs where the scope was clear from the start: the existing decking was shot and had to come out entirely before anything else could happen.

The inspection told the story. The sheathing across the main house had gone soft and spongy from moisture exposure over the years. You can't shingle over that. Putting new shingles on compromised decking just buries the problem and shortens the life of everything above it. The only right move was a full strip-down to the framing and a complete re-sheet. We pulled all 57 sheets of OSB and replaced them with new 7/16 inch OSB decking across the entire roof. That's a significant amount of wood, and it's the foundation everything else sits on. Getting that right mattered.

Once the deck was solid, we started building the roof system from the bottom up. CertainTeed Winterguard ice and water shield went down first, four rolls total, covering six feet at all the eaves plus the valleys, walls, and penetrations. Above that, we ran CertainTeed Roofrunner synthetic underlayment up to the ridge, fastened with plastic cap nails. New premium drip edge went on at all the edges, 23 pieces total. Step flashing and wall flashing were installed at the transitions. Both vent pipe penetrations got brand new pipe boots and pipe boot covers. The B vent was resealed as well. Swiftstart starter shingles went in at the eaves and rakes before the field shingles were laid.

The shingles are CertainTeed Landmark Pro in Weathered Wood, max definition. Amy had been deciding between this and the Atlas Pinnacle, and she landed on the Landmark Pro. It's a solid choice. We installed 55 bundles across the field, which works out to just over 18 squares, and finished the hips and ridge with CertainTeed Shadow hip and ridge shingles, hand-nailed at 115 linear feet. The color turned out exactly as expected. Amy confirmed it after the job was done.

Ventilation was a big part of this project. The house had no attic ventilation at all before we got there, which is a common contributor to the kind of moisture damage we found in the decking. We installed a complete balanced system. On the side of the house with a 6-inch overhang, we added eight 4 by 16 inch louvered soffit vents to bring fresh air in at the eaves. On the east-facing slope over the patio, there's no overhang to work with, so we ran edge vent along that section instead to provide intake ventilation where soffit vents simply aren't an option. We installed 15 attic rafter baffles to keep the ventilation channel open and direct airflow from the intake points up toward the exhaust. At the peak, 29 units of CertainTeed ridge vent run the full length of the roof, 115 linear feet of exhaust. That's a proper intake-to-exhaust system that will keep the attic dry going forward.

One thing worth noting: during the project, a loose power mast was identified where the electrical line enters the house. The bracket was pulling the attachment point sideways. That's outside our scope, but Roofing Army connected Amy with a master electrician who came out the same day to assess it and price the repair. We work around those situations rather than ignore them.

The job came in at $14,469. For a Rochester Hills roof replacement of this size, with a full re-sheet of 57 OSB panels, a complete ventilation overhaul, and CertainTeed Landmark Pro shingles, that's a fair number for what was done. Mildred Avenue sits just west of Rochester Road in a well-established neighborhood, and this home is set up now to handle Southeast Michigan winters without the moisture issues that were quietly eating through the old decking. The crew finished in the expected timeframe, did a magnetic nail sweep of the property, and Amy said the crew did an excellent job. That's the goal every time.