Just about everybody has asphalt shingles on their roof they're very
common here but why is that? Is because they're better than everything else?
I'm Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing and welcome to another walk in
the park video where we take just a few minutes to answer your questions about
roof repairs, roof replacements, and the insurance claim process and on today's
video we're going to answer the question: why are asphalt shingles the most
popular roofing material in Colorado Springs? Okay so I'm going to tip my hand
right out of the gate here and say that I am very biased
I'm very prejudiced toward asphalt shingles. There's a lot of different
roofing materials available here in the Colorado Springs market but I just
really like asphalt shingles, so some of what I'm going to talk about is colored
by my own personal preference my own personal bias. The first and foremost I
think the main reason that asphalt shingles are so popular is just because
they're so cost efficient they're accessible to pretty much every
homeowner pretty much every homeowner can afford asphalt shingles where that's
just not true with a lot of other roofing materials like steel or tile. I
mean even hiring the work done as opposed to doing it yourself if you use
a licensed and professional roofing contractor most homeowners can get an
asphalt shingle roof installed for around three dollars and 25 cents to 4
dollars and 25 cents per square foot compared to other roofing materials
that's very cost efficient very competitive. And so like I said pretty
much any homeowner can afford to put an asphalt shingle on his roof if somebody
can't afford an asphalt shingle for his roof then he really doesn't have any
other less expensive options. Reason number two that asphalt shingles
are so popular is just because they're so available you can get them pretty
much anywhere you can get them at any of the big box stores even if you live in
like a remote mountain town Buena Vista, Fluorescent, right there's hardware
stores there that sell asphalt shingles well that's not going to be true with
some of the other roofing materials tile, steel, that kind of stuff you're not
going to be able to find that stuff just anywhere so they're very readily
available and accessible to people.
Reason number three that asphalt shingles are so popular is because they
look good on any kind of home. Again some of the other roofing materials steel and
tile you can't say that right? Some houses just would look really lame
probably is the best word for it with a steel roof on it or a tile roof on it
but asphalt shingles look good on any kind of home. If you have a more upscale
home you can choose an asphalt shingle profile that's more upscale if you have
more of just like an average kind of a starter home you can choose an asphalt
shingle that will fit into that neighborhood. So other roofing materials
are going to be probably a little bit more exclusive they're only going to
work on certain kinds of homes whereas asphalt shingle will work on
every home style that there is. Reason number four that asphalt shingles
are so popular is because they're available in an impact resistant
material. Now you might be saying okay concrete tile that's impact resistant
steel that's impact resistant yeah that's all true but in an asphalt
shingle if you don't want to pay the extra money to have impact resistance
you don't have to but you have the option to do that whereas with tile and
metal you don't really have that option. The other nice thing about the impact
resistance of an asphalt shingle is the impact resistance is available in the
different profiles and styles, so if you like an asphalt shingle that has more of
a wood shake look or more of a slate look you can choose whether or not you
want to impact resistant shingles or you don't want impact
resistant shingles. Reason number five that
asphalt shingles are so popular is because they hold up really well to just
about any kind of weather condition that you're going to encounter here in
Colorado and you might be saying oh come on Tracy hundreds or thousands sometimes
of homes every year in Colorado Springs have to get replaced because of hail do
asphalt shingles really hold up that well to hail? Well if it's just normal
sized hail then yes asphalt shingles do hold up actually pretty well to hail.
However, if it's large hail like we have had here in the last few years where
it's you know tennis ball-sized or baseball sized any roofing material that
you have on your house is going to get demolished by hail that that is that big
and here's one of the things that we found in the 2018 storms is that people
that had tile roofs those got turned to rubble and then what happens now the
underlayment is exposed so there were a few situations where homeowners with a
single roof had hail come all the way through the shingles and all the way
through the wood decking underneath it but
were rare occurrences but the people that had tile roofs those roofs like I
say got demolished turned to rubble and now the underlayment was exposed and so
now your roof is exposed to rain and all of that stuff and so people were having
water come into their house because there are tile roofs essentially we're
gone. Reason number six that asphalt shingles are so popular is because their
weather tight they're made out of asphalt which is impermeable water is
not going to go through asphalt and tar and the other thing is that they have a
seal strip and so each shingle seals to the shingle underneath it and the one
above it is sealed to it so it's very much just like scales on a fish or on a
reptile right whereas with tile right those tiles are just sitting on top of
each other and even with like metal tile or metal panels water can get in between
them or underneath them and then you're relying on your underlayment for your
water barrier and your water protection not that that's a bad thing but just
with an asphalt shingle roof you've got two water barriers you've got the
asphalt shingle and you've got the underlayment.
Reason number seven that asphalt shingles are so popular is because they
have a long lifespan, again you might be thinking I'll come on all it takes is
one good hailstorm and it's gonna wipe out an asphalt shingle roof well that's
true one good hailstorm is also going to wipe
out a tile roof or a metal roof or a wood shake roof but if they're well
cared for and if there's no catastrophic storms that an asphalt shingle roof
should easily last you 30 years maybe even longer than that. Reason number
eight that asphalt shingles are so popular in Colorado Springs
in my personal opinion this is one of the biggest reasons is because it's easy
to repair and work on an asphalt shingle roof. So if there's a leak or there's a
problem on a roof that is asphalt shingles typically it's pretty easy to
find and definitely it's easy to fix. Asphalt shingles are easy to separate
and replace a few if need be on a tile roof or a wood shake roof or a metal
roof just the the process of trying to find a leak or find a problem with the
roof is a challenge in itself and then if you have to do any spot repairs you
may end up having to replace a whole panel sometimes those panels could be
25, 30 feet long maybe even longer. Tile is another challenge because oftentimes
those tiles are obsolete and it's difficult to find ones that match so
it's not uncommon for us to do repair on a tile roof and we hit end up having to
get tiles that don't match the tiles that are currently on the roof so the
roof looks like it's got some patch work done on it.
Okay so I just got off two roofs this afternoon and I realized that there's
one other reason that asphalt shingles are so popular here and it's one more
advantage to asphalt shingles okay? So one roof that I got off of was a
concrete tile and then I just got off of this house behind me that has an asphalt
shingle roof so the concrete tile all right this is the result of some stucco
guys. Some stucco guys were on the roof and even though we had told them
specifically how to walk on the tile they didn't walk on the tile the way
they were supposed to walked right in the middle of it and broke almost a
hundred tiles. Well guess what? Asphalt shingles don't break when you walk on
them they're very durable to foot traffic the only time that you have to
be really careful is if it's a really hot day they can get kind of soft kind
of supple the asphalt gets real spongy and if you walk on it you can actually
kind of rub the granules off of it but otherwise asphalt shingles are really
good for walking on for foot traffic so those are my reasons why I think asphalt
shingle roofs are so popular here in Colorado Springs
if you agree let me know in the comments section if you disagree let me know in
the comments section or if you just got questions about your roof you need
somebody that will give you some answers feel free to give us a call at our
office right up here seven one nine four three three six nine nine one you can
also visit our website that's right down here at homestead roofing colorado .com
we've got a ton of information out there lots of other videos with lots of
information for you. If you've liked this video and it's been helpful for you we
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notified when we've got new videos and until our next walk in the park I'm
Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing.