Salt Lake City roofing
When a repair is no longer the smart move, we install a roof built to take decades of Wasatch snow, freeze-thaw cycles, and intense high-altitude sun.
Call (385) 340-6200A roof replacement takes your home back to bare wood and rebuilds the entire weatherproofing system from the deck up — not another layer of shingles over the old one, and not a fifth patch on a slope that's given up. For a Salt Lake City home, you usually land here because the sun finally won. At around 4,300 feet the UV is harsher than the shingle wrapper accounts for, and asphalt rated for 30 years often looks its age closer to 20 here.
The other common path is water. Older homes in the Avenues, Sugar House, and Rose Park were built with shallow eaves and attics that don't breathe well, so snowmelt refreezes at the edge, backs up under the shingles, and rots the decking before you ever see a stain. From the ground, watch for shingles curling or going bald across a whole slope, granules collecting where your downspouts drain, and lifted or rusted metal in the valleys.
Inside, check the attic after a storm: dark streaks on the sheathing, damp insulation, or a stain along the top of an exterior wall tell you more than the shingles do. Not every tired roof needs to come off. We get on it, photograph what we find, and tell you straight whether you're out of life or a repair and better ventilation will buy you a few more winters.
We strip every layer — shingles, underlayment, and any second roof a past crew nailed over instead of removing. Utah lets you stack two layers, and plenty of SLC homes carry a hidden second one that traps heat and hides rot. Going over old material buries the exact problems that made you call and loads weight your rafters were never sized for. Everything comes off so we start on clean wood.
With the roof bare we walk every sheet, looking for soft spots, delamination, and boards that won't hold a nail. On homes built before the 1950s you often find plank or skip sheathing that's split at the nail lines. We replace what's rotted or spongy and re-nail what's loose before anything new goes down, and we show you the bad wood so the added cost isn't a surprise.
Utah code requires a self-adhering ice-and-water membrane at the eaves, and we run it up past the interior wall line where ice dams actually form — plus into every valley and around chimneys. The rest of the deck gets synthetic underlayment, not old felt that wrinkles and tears in the cold. This is the layer that keeps water out when snow backs up, so we don't cut it short.
We replace flashing rather than reuse it. New step flashing where the roof meets walls and chimneys, new valley metal, and fresh boots on every pipe and vent. Reused metal is already fatigued from years of freeze-thaw and is where most "new" roofs start leaking. Around a masonry chimney — common on older brick homes here — we cut a proper counterflashing reglet instead of caulking over the old joint.
We install architectural asphalt shingles rated for the wind and UV this valley sees, and we correct ventilation while the roof is open — ridge and intake vents balanced so the attic can dry and shed heat. When we're done we run magnets over the yard and driveway for nails, haul every scrap, and leave the site clean. The only sign we were here is the roof.
You call, we come out and get on the roof — no drone-only guesses. We photograph the slopes, valleys, flashing, and the attic underside, then sit down and tell you whether you're truly out of life or a targeted repair will hold. If it's replacement, we measure everything then so the estimate reflects your actual roof.
You get an itemized estimate that separates tear-off, decking allowance, materials, and labor, so nothing hides in a single number. We walk through shingle lines, colors, and whether an impact-rated or heavier system makes sense for your slope and exposure. Decking replacement is priced per sheet up front, since no one knows the full count until the old roof is off.
We pull the building permit — required in Salt Lake City and across most of the county — and schedule around the weather, since cold and snow decide when shingles will seal. Before tear-off we protect landscaping, cover the AC, and move what needs moving. Most single-family homes are a one-to-three-day job once we start.
The crew tears off and dries the roof back in the same day so it's never left open overnight. We install the full system, then the city or county inspector signs off on the permit. We do our own final check, walk the attic and yard with you, and register your manufacturer warranty in your name before we leave.
The hardest thing on a roof here isn't snow — it's the swing. Salt Lake City can run a 40-degree spread between a sunny winter afternoon and the night that follows, and that freeze-thaw cycle works at every seam, nail, and flashing joint all winter. Add the elevation, where UV bakes asphalt faster than a sea-level rating suggests, and you get shingles that curl and lose granules years before the warranty runs out. The benches and foothills add another factor: the east canyon windstorms that periodically tear down the Wasatch Front can peel poorly nailed or brittle shingles off an entire slope in one night.
The housing mix matters too. The Avenues, Capitol Hill, and Sugar House are full of early-1900s homes with steep pitches, plank decking, and masonry chimneys that need proper counterflashing. If your home sits in one of the city's historic districts, changing roof material or color can trigger design review, so we sort that out before ordering. Salt Lake City requires a permit and inspection on a replacement, as do most municipalities in the county, and each city runs its own building department — we handle whichever one covers your address.
Most asphalt replacements on a single-family home here land somewhere between roughly $9,000 and $20,000, and the spread comes from real things, not markup. Steep or cut-up roofs cost more to walk and shingle, a second layer doubles the tear-off, and rotted decking is billed per sheet once it's exposed. Bigger footprints, tile or metal, and hard chimney flashing all push it up. We'd rather show you where the number comes from than hand you a single figure.
Once we start, most single-family roofs are done in one to three days depending on size, pitch, and how much decking we find. Steep Avenues homes and cut-up rooflines take longer than a simple ranch. Weather runs the schedule in winter — we won't lay shingles in a cold snap when they can't seal, because a roof installed too cold can fail to bond and blow off in the next windstorm.
It depends on why the roof failed. Wind or hail damage from a specific storm is usually a covered claim; a roof that simply wore out from age and UV is not. If you think a storm did it, we'll get on the roof, document what we find, and meet your adjuster so nothing gets missed. We won't tell you a worn-out roof is storm damage — that's a claim that gets denied and wastes everyone's time.
Architectural asphalt is what most homes get and, realistically, gives you 20 to 25 years in this UV before it's tired. Standing-seam metal and concrete or clay tile last far longer — 40-plus years — and shed snow well, but they cost more and tile needs a structure built for the weight. For a steep, sunny slope we'll sometimes suggest a heavier or impact-rated shingle. We'll tell you what we'd put on our own house given your roof.
Two different warranties are in play. The manufacturer covers the shingles themselves against defects, and we register it in your name. Our workmanship warranty covers how it was installed — flashing, nailing, valleys, the things that actually leak. Read the length and what voids it: skipping ventilation or stacking a second layer later can kill both. If a leak traces to our install, we come back and fix it, not argue about it.
Yes. Salt Lake City requires a building permit for a full replacement, and so do most cities in Salt Lake County — Murray, West Valley, Sandy, and the rest each run their own department. An inspector checks the ice barrier and the finished work before the permit closes. We pull it under our license and handle the inspection. If a contractor offers to skip the permit to save you a few dollars, that's a sign of how they'll do the rest of the job.