Roof Replacement in Palatka and Putnam County, Done Right the First Time

Some roofs are done, and it is obvious once you are up there. Shingles that crack when you lift them instead of bending. Bald patches where the granules have washed off and the black mat shows through on the south slope. Decking that gives underfoot.

A single bad valley, one cooked pipe boot or a run of wind-lifted shingles is a roof repair, not a replacement. Juan says so when a repair is the honest answer. When he tells you it is not, it is because he stood on it, not because a replacement is a bigger ticket.

Everything comes off. Shingles, the old felt, the drip edge, the flashing, every nail. Then we walk the bare deck, sheet by sheet.

What we find around here is predictable. Rot around chimneys and at the bottom of valleys where water sat. Soft plywood along the eaves where a bad drip edge let water wick back into the fascia. On older houses in Palatka's historic core, plank decking with gaps too wide for modern fasteners. Bad wood gets cut out and replaced with new plywood, and it goes on the invoice as what it is, with photos, not as a surprise at the end.

Once the deck is bare, every sheet gets re-nailed with ring-shank nails to the current Florida Building Code spacing. That step is a big part of what holds a roof on in a tropical storm, and a wind mitigation inspector (form OIR-B1-1802) writes it down for your insurance company.

Next comes the secondary water barrier: a self-adhered peel-and-stick underlayment over the whole deck, or the sheathing seams sealed under a synthetic underlayment. It keeps the house dry if the shingles or panels ever get lifted. Under metal we use a high temperature self-adhered product, because a metal roof runs hotter and an ordinary peel-and-stick will slide. New drip edge goes on at the eaves and rakes, and every wall and chimney gets new flashing, never the old flashing re-used.

Most of the roofs we replace go back on as metal. Our metal roofing page goes deep on the Tri County Metals panels, gauges, finishes and colors we install, and our post on metal versus shingles in North Florida lays out the trade-offs. The short version: metal costs more once, and then you are done with the sun, the wind and the algae streaks.

Shingles still make sense on plenty of houses. Architectural shingles on a subdivision house in Palm Coast where the HOA expects them, a rental in Palatka where the budget has to work today, a house that will be sold within a few years. Our asphalt shingle roofing page covers that side.

Homeowners hear about Florida's 25 percent rule and get nervous. Under the Florida Building Code, when more than 25 percent of a roof section is repaired or replaced within a year, the whole section has to be brought up to current code. Since the 2022 change (Senate Bill 4-D, effective May 26, 2022, now in the code), a roof built or replaced under the 2007 code or later does not have to be replaced entirely when more than 25 percent of it is repaired. Older roofs can still trip the rule, and that is often what tips a large storm repair into a full replacement.

The building department has the final say, and we do not give legal advice. What we do is tell you which side of the line your roof is likely on before you spend money on a patch. There is a longer explanation in our post on the Florida 25 percent roof rule.

A roof replacement needs a permit in every county we work in, and we pull it. The Florida Product Approval numbers for the roofing and underlayment go on the paperwork, and an inspector looks at the deck nailing and the dry-in before the finish roofing covers it, then again at the final. In Palatka that is Putnam County; in DeLand it is Volusia; in Ocala it is Marion.

The crew arrives early. Tarps go over the landscaping and the pool cage. The old roof comes off in sections so the deck is never left open longer than it takes to inspect, repair and dry it in. Then the finish roofing, the trim, the ridge, the boots.

On a typical house that is a one day job, and sometimes a long one. Jerry M. wrote in his Google review that the crew worked in temperatures over 100 degrees and still finished the whole roof replacement in a single day. Homeowners have watched the crew finish a replacement in a single day more than once. We do not promise it, because a rotten deck or a rained-out afternoon can change the schedule, and we would rather do the deck right than beat the clock. You always get the yard raked and the magnet run for nails.

One house in our gallery tells the story better than a paragraph can. A two-story cream house with a brick lower level and a wraparound porch, on a big lawn under old oaks, with a tired brown shingle roof. We tore it to the deck, re-nailed, dried it in, and put on a light gray standing seam metal roof. The after photo is the same house, and it looks like a different one.

A new roof rarely comes at a convenient time. Three Regions Bank plans are available through EnerBank, and you can read every term on our financing page: 9 months same as cash, 9.99% for 5 years, and 9.99% for 12 years. You can get pre-qualified through the links on our financing page with no impact to your credit score. If a storm brought you here, our storm damage restoration page explains how we document the damage and meet your adjuster. Our service areas page shows how far we go.