Core work
Metal Roof Installation
New metal roofs on Bellingham homes. Tear off, deck inspection, underlayment, panel layout, flashing and trim, detailed for a climate that finds every shortcut eventually.
A metal roof installation is mostly a set of decisions made before any panel goes on. Which system suits the pitch. How the underlayment is run. Where the panels start so the last one at the far rake is not a two inch sliver. What happens at every chimney, vent, skylight and sidewall. Get those right and the roof is uneventful for decades. Get them wrong and the panels will be fine while the roof leaks.
Bellingham makes some of those decisions for you. The craftsman housing in Columbia, Sunnyland and York runs steep simple gables, which is close to ideal for metal. The mid century stock on Alabama Hill and Silver Beach runs lower pitches and long uninterrupted runs, which changes both the panel choice and how much room the metal needs to move. Anything under the fir canopy is going to collect needles in the valleys whatever you put on it, so the valley detail matters more here than it would somewhere dry.
We install standing seam and exposed fastener systems. Which one you want depends on the roof and on how much you want to think about it in fifteen years, and that is a conversation worth having before the estimate rather than after.
The problem
What this solves
A roof at the end of its third composition cycle
The deck is fine, the framing is fine, and you are tired of doing the same job every twenty years. This is the most common reason people on this list end up with metal.
A roofline that keeps failing at the same place
Some houses have a detail that has never worked. A dead valley, a sidewall that dumps onto a lower roof, a chimney that has been reflashed twice. New roof, new chance to actually solve it.
A house you intend to keep
Metal earns its money over time, not at the closing table. If this is the last roof you plan to buy for this house, it is the straightforward answer.
The first visit
What the first visit covers
We get on the roof and into the attic.
Pitch, roofline complexity, penetration count, deck condition where we can see it, and any ventilation that is already not working.
We talk through panel systems honestly.
Standing seam and exposed fastener, what each costs to do properly, and what each asks of you later. Not a pitch for the expensive one.
We flag what will make it harder.
Dormers, skylights, solar, a satellite dish, an old swamp cooler curb nobody removed. These are all solvable and they are all money.
You get it priced in writing.
The panel system, the underlayment, the flashing approach, the ventilation work, the disposal, and an explicit list of what is excluded.
The work
How an installation runs
Call and site visit.
We look at the roof properly and take measurements rather than estimating off aerial imagery.
System selection and written estimate.
Panel, profile, underlayment, flashing, ventilation, exclusions.
Scheduling around the weather.
Metal work wants a dry enough stretch. We will tell you when that realistically is, including when the honest answer is to wait.
Tear off and deck inspection.
The old roof comes off and we look at what is under it. Rot gets found here or it gets buried, and we do not bury it.
Underlayment, panel and flashing.
Underlayment run, panel layout set from the ridge down so the coursing lands right, then every penetration and transition flashed.
Walkthrough and cleanup.
We show you what went on and what we found, then the site is cleaned and the driveway magneted.
Straight answers
Why us for an installation
We only install metal
It is the whole business. The detailing that makes a metal roof last is specific to metal, and it is almost entirely invisible once the job is finished, which is exactly why it gets skipped.
The panel layout is planned, not improvised
Where the first panel lands decides where the last one lands. Starting at the wrong edge produces a narrow ugly panel at the visible rake, and on a Bellingham craftsman with a prominent gable that is the first thing anyone sees.
What is genuinely wrong with a metal roof
It costs more up front and there is no way around that. It is louder in heavy rain than people expect, particularly on a low pitch with a shallow attic. It can oil can, meaning slight waviness in a flat panel area, which is a cosmetic property of flat metal rather than a defect and still bothers some people. It dents. If a fir limb comes down on it you will see it, and unlike shingle you cannot swap three tabs and forget it. If any of that is a dealbreaker, better to know now.
We will talk you out of it when we should
A house going on the market next spring, a complicated cut up roofline where the flashing cost eats the benefit, or a budget that would produce a cheap metal roof rather than a good one. In all three cases another composition roof is the better decision, and we will say so even though it means we do not get the job.
Get an installation priced
Tell us the neighbourhood and roughly when the house was built. We will come and look at the roof and give you a real number.
Reviews
What customers say
Nothing yet, and we are not going to write our own.
There are no reviews on this page because there are no reviews yet
This is a new business. It has no review history, no star rating and no customer photographs, and every one of those would be trivial to fabricate and worth nothing to you.
The judgement you can actually make today is about how this company talks about its own product. There is a page on this site about what is wrong with metal roofs and who should not buy one, written by the company that only sells metal roofs. Read that instead of a testimonial, then decide.
What each review will carry when they exist
- Customer name and town
- Job type and date
- What we got right
- Star rating
Questions
Metal roof installation questions
What is the average cost of a metal roof in Washington state?
Washington is not a cheap market for this work, the spread between a basic exposed fastener roof and a properly detailed standing seam roof is large, and roofline complexity moves the price more than square footage does.
Cost figures are not published here yet. We will not put a number on a page that we have not stood behind on a roof, so ask and we will price your roof.
Does a metal roof need underlayment?
Yes, and on a roof in this climate it is not the place to save money. The underlayment is the actual water barrier during the install and the backup for the rest of the roof's life. It also separates the panel from the deck, which matters for condensation and for noise. A metal roof laid on bare deck or on tired felt is a roof that will be opened up again sooner than it should be.
Do you need an air gap under a metal roof?
It depends on the assembly, and in a wet climate it is worth getting right. The purpose is to give any moisture that reaches the underside of the panel somewhere to go and a way to dry. On a vented attic with good intake and exhaust the attic itself does much of that work. On a low slope assembly or an unvented cathedral ceiling, which shows up regularly on the mid century houses here, the detail needs deciding deliberately rather than assumed.
What is the 25% rule for roofing?
It is a code and insurance rule of thumb rather than a metal roofing rule. The general idea is that once repairs would cover more than a quarter of the roof area, patching stops being the sensible route and the roof gets brought up to current standards instead. Treat it as a decision threshold rather than a law, and check what your jurisdiction and your carrier actually require.
What color roof increases home value?
Nobody can honestly quote you a figure on this and you should be careful with anyone who does. What we can say is that mid to dark neutrals, charcoal, bronze and deep green, sit comfortably on the housing stock here and tend to date slowly. The stronger effect on value is a roof that is clearly new and clearly well detailed, not the colour of it.
What is the average price for a 3 ft by 10 ft metal roof?
That is a single panel, not a roof, and panel prices are the smallest part of what you are buying. The material is a minority of an installed roof cost. The rest is tear off, disposal, underlayment, flashing, trim, fasteners, labour and the time it takes to detail the difficult parts. Comparing quotes on panel price will mislead you every time.
Coverage
Where we install
Bellingham, and the towns within about half an hour: Ferndale, Lynden, Blaine and Birch Bay. We also get out to Everson, Nooksack, Sumas, Deming and Point Roberts.
Ask about an installation
That is with us
We will get back to you within a working day. If water is coming in right now, call (360) 555-0142 rather than waiting on this.