Roofing in Rockport

One date explains most of it

On 25 August 2017 Harvey came ashore as a category four storm close to this town, and what followed was one of the largest concentrated roofing efforts the Texas coast has seen. Most of Rockport lost or damaged a roof. Most of Rockport got a new one within about three years.

That is why the roofing picture here is unlike anywhere else on the Coastal Bend. Instead of a spread of ages, there is a wall of roofs that are now eight or nine years old, which is early middle age for asphalt shingle. They are not finished. They are at the point where whatever was done poorly starts to announce itself, and whatever was done properly quietly carries on.

What rushed work looks like nine years on

The field of a roof is hard to get badly wrong. The details are not. In the rebuild years the things that suffered were the parts that take time and judgment rather than speed: step flashing at a wall run, the way a valley was woven or cut, the fastening pattern along a rake, the seal at a vent collar, the nail line being high or overdriven.

Nine years later those show up as isolated leaks and as small areas that lift in wind while everything around them stays put. A roof that is failing at three details and sound everywhere else is a repair. A roof failing at fifteen is a roof that was never properly laid.

The other legacy is decking. Where sheets were replaced in a hurry, gaps and thickness changes got covered over, and you can sometimes read them as shallow lines across the finished surface in low sun.

Paperwork from the rebuild

A great many windstorm certificates were issued in Aransas County in those years, and the association keeps a lookup so a certificate already issued against an address can be found without the original folder. That is worth doing before you buy here, and worth doing now if you are not sure what your own roof has behind it.

If it turns out there is no certificate on a roof that went on during the rebuild, that is not a disaster, but it is a fact you want to know before the next claim rather than during it. What the certificate is and why the association wants one is set out on the roof replacement page.

Second homes and empty houses

A good share of the housing here is not lived in year round. An empty house does not report its own leaks, and a small failure that would be caught in a week somewhere else can run for a season. If a house sits empty through the summer, somebody should put eyes on the ceilings and the attic at the end of it, not just at the start.

If wind is what caused the damage, the claim rules are the same here as everywhere in Texas, and the three day cancellation right is the one to remember when somebody knocks.