Doraville Cedar Shake Roofing

What makes cedar different from shingles? It is wood, and wood moves. Cedar shakes soak up rain and swell, then dry in the sun and shrink, again and again all year. Lay them too tight and they buckle. Keep them from drying and they cup, split, grow moss and rot, and the deck underneath can go with them. So how do you get a cedar roof to last? Leave the right gap between shakes so they can move. Put felt between the courses so any water that sneaks past the wood gets turned back out. Give the underside air so it can dry. Fasten with stainless or coated nails so nothing rusts or streaks. And treat the flashing, vents and gutters as part of the same system. When we look at a cedar roof, we check for split, cupped and soft shakes, moss, missing pieces and bad flashing, and we photograph what we find. Is the damage in a few spots? Swapping out the bad shakes and redoing the flashing around them can buy a lot of years. Is it all over the roof? Then a new cedar roof is usually the better money, and we will show you why.