*
Ah, the joys of being a (involuntary) landlord… See first message for my quest for a reroofing solution…
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story

The crew talks about work start times, fire-resistant construction, fixer-uppers, building Larsen trusses, and AI for construction.
Featured Video
A Modern California Home Wrapped in Rockwool Insulation for Energy Efficiency and Fire ResistanceRelated Stories
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Replies
*
The police chased me down in a small town in Oregon to tell me that the renters in my house in El Sobrante, CA, said that a tree had fallen on the house. My presence seemed to be necessary to get anything done, so I drove the 600 miles to the Bay Area to arrive at the start of the next big rain storm. The damage was not really as bad as I expected. The top half of a 70 foot pine snapped off and landed flat on the roof, the limbs poked about seven holes about 8" to 10" through the roof plus several smaller ones. What surprised me was the composition of the roof. The house is a traditional 1400sq ft ranch house built in 1957. The roof is composed of about 2" thick, 4'x8' fiberboard tongue and grooved panels that lay on the beams. There are accoustic tiles bonded to the bottom side and a hot mopped tar and gravel coating is applied to the top. That's it - the panels are the entire roof.
I contacted a local roofing company and they were familiar with the panels and said they could still get them. The quote was $1800 to replace the damaged sections (I would guess about 1/3 of the roof) but they said that there was dry rot in the panels and the entire roof needed to be redone at $4400.
In the areas where the limbs pentrated, the panels appeared sound enough, but it wouldn't surprise me to have dry rot along the edges where the fascia attaches. The $1800 for repair of the tree damage doesn't seem out of line, but the $4400 for an entire roof seems a bit high as I would guess that only the outermost panels would need to be replaced.
I did a search on the Internet and found lots of info on fiberboard roof sheathing, but didn't find anyone listing fiberboard structural roofing panels such as mine. I did find some other info such as 2" fiberboard has an r value of about 5 - not great, but then the walls of the house are not not insulated at all.
My questions:
Who still makes this stuff?
How are the panels attached to the 4"x6" ceiling beams? Long screws?
Any suggestions on whether there is a less expensive way of tackling the dry rot if it is only along the edge where the fascia attaches rather than just replacing the entire panel? (Cut off a couple of inches with my trusty Skill worm drive? There is at least two feet of overhang, so a couple of inches wouldn't be missed.) I have had good luck treating dry rotted areas with low viscosity epoxy, but I assume the fiber board would soak up enough of the expensive stuff so that it would be about as cheap to replace the whole panel.
Anyone have recommendations for any other roofers who could handle this type of job in the Berkeley, San Pablo, Richmond area of the San Francisco East Bay?
I had thought about adding some sheets of bead board on top of the roof for a little more insulation prior the inevitable remopping of the roof, but if replacing the existing roof is $4400 and since I will probably end up selling the house in a couple of years when I need money to build my house in Oregon, I don't know if it is worth it.
*
Ah, the joys of being a (involuntary) landlord... See first message for my quest for a reroofing solution...