Before you can accurately understand a roof assessment or a roofing estimate, you should familiarize yourself with roofing terminology, especially when in Roofing Milledgeville GA. Below are some commonly used terms that identify parts of a roof and types of roofing
- Built-up Roof: A low-slope (or flat-seeming) roof covered with alternating layers of roofing felt and hot-mapped asphalt and topped off with a layer of gravel.
- Cricket: A peak saddle construction at the back of the chimney to prevent accumulation and to deflect water around the chimney.
- Collar: Pre-formed flange placed over a vent pipe to seal the roof around the vent pipe opening; also called a vent sleeve.
- Cornice: The portion of the roof projecting out from the side walls of the house.
- Drip Edge: The strip of metal extending out beyond the eaves or rakes to prevent rainwater from rolling around the shingles back onto the wooden portion of the house.
- Deck/sheathing: The surface, usually plywood or oriented strand board (OSB), to which roofing materials are applied.
- Dormer: A small structure projecting from a sloped roof, usually with a window.
- Eave: The horizontal lower edge of a sloped roof.
- Fascia: Trimboard behind the gutter and eaves.
- Flashing: Sheet metal or other material used at junctions of different planes on a roof to prevent leakage.
- Felt/ Underlayment: A sheet of asphalt-saturated material (often called tar paper) used as a secondary layer of protection for the roof deck.
- Flashing: Pieces of metal used to prevent the seepage of water around any intersection or projection in a roof system, such as vent pipes, chimneys, valleys and joints at vertical walls.
- Gable: The triangular upper part of a wall closing the end of a ridged roof
- Hip: The external angle at the junction of two sides of a roof whose supporting walls adjoin.
- Laminated Shingles: Strip shingles containing more than one layer of tabs to create extra thickness; also called three-dimensional shingles or architectural shingles.
- OSB: Roof deck panels (4 by 8 feet) made of narrow bits of wood, installed lengthwise and crosswise in layers, and held together with resin glue. OSB often is used as a substitute for plywood sheets
- Pitch: The degree of roof inclined expressed as the ratio of the rise, in feet, to the span, in feet.
- Rafter: A structural member (usually slanted) to which sheathing is nailed.
- Rake: The slanting edge of a gabled roof extending beyond the end wall of the house.
- Ridge: The top edge of two intersecting sloping roof surfaces.
- Sheathing: The boards or sheet materials that are fastened to rafters to cover a house or building.
- Soffit: The boards that enclose the underside of that portion of the roof which extends out beyond the sidewalls of the house.
- Square: The common measurement for roof area. One square is 100 square feet (10 by 10 feet).
- Truss: Engineered components that supplement rafters in many newer homes and buildings. Trusses are designed for specific applications and cannot be cut or altered.
- Underlayment – Asphalt saturated felt used beneath roofing to provide additional protection for the deck.
- Valley: The angle formed at the intersection of two sloping roof surfaces.
- Vapor Retarder: A material designed to restrict the passage of water vapor through a roof system or wall.