LESLIE: Lindsey in Delaware finds The Money Pit on WDEL and you’ve got a roofing question. How can we help?
LINDSEY: I have a very flat roof; it’s a 2/12 pitch. And the roof that I put on there 25 years ago was … it was what they call double coverage. It was a roll roofing.
TOM: Yeah, two layers of roll roofing put opposed to each other. Right.
LINDSEY: Yeah, in other words, it’s about a four foot sheet that overlaps half and half.
TOM: Right. Yes.
LINDSEY: Half sticky. And that worked pretty good. Now, the roofer that I had come to do half of my roof – who has yet to come back, unfortunately –
TOM: (laughing) Isn’t that typical? (chuckling)
LINDSEY: And you know what I’m talking about. Like The Money Pit movie?
TOM: Absolutely.
LESLIE: Yeah. (laughing)
LINDSEY: Two weeks, he says. Yeah.
TOM: Two weeks. (laughing)
LINDSEY: Anyways, he suggested not to put that kind of roof on, to get a rubber membrane roof because that would … that would last 50 years.
TOM: Well, I would agree because roll roofing is about the lowest grade roofing you can put on. And roll roofing is either put on with single coverage – which means you basically overlap it by about four inches; these are the wide sheets – or, as you have, Lindsey, double coverage where you’re overlapping it by about every 18 inches. That’s, of course, better than single coverage but, really, a rubber roof would be a much better alternative for that roof and it will last a heck of a lot longer and be a lot more trouble-free than the roll roofing you have on now. So I think that’s good advice. If you can get the guy to come back and do it (chuckling), a rubber roof is the way to go.
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