roofing: would you change it all or do small repairs? (insurance, house)

[behtypa]

Please give me your opinion if I need to change all roof or just do some fixing.

I have a 13 year old roofing with 30-year shingles. The roof will not last for 20+ (7+ more) years but may be for 2-4 more years. Here is why:
- the roof is stapled and not nailed
- the granules are slowly falling off and some areas (no more than 10%) are practically "bald".
- there is a few minor cracks, no major water damage. But I have found at least one palm-size spot on a ceiling.
- there are 3-5 bad areas (probably 3-5 squares out of 40 squares total) where the OSB decking is bad and shingles are all black.

So, 80% of the roofing is in OK condition. It will probably last for up to 5 more years. 20% is in average to poor condition, but no visible leaks yet.

The price for changing the whole roof is $8000.
The price for fixes here and there is around $2000-$3000.

My insurance policy is new, unless a hail is beating the roof, I wont be able to claim the regular wear and tear. Even if I did, I'd still have to pay 1-2% deductible, which is 3000-6000 off the 8000 bill. So this is not really an option so far.

Question: Would you rather change the whole roof and forget about the issue for the next 15 years? Or you would do some repair now and maybe go back to more repairs 5-10 years down the road?

[tdhg566]

I encountered this exact scenario some years ago at a younger age. I opted to do the repairs myself, including replacing bad decking (for far less than $2000-3000). I ended up selling the house before a new roof was needed.

Part of the question, which you didn't specify, is whether you have ready access to the cash for the repair, or whether you have to borrow the money, cash out a CD, withdraw money from your 401k, etc etc etc. I'll assume the money is available now and neither alternative is better or worse from a cash flow standpoint.

So if you're unable to do the repairs yourself, IMHO the relatively small cost difference makes the repairs a bad investment, and I would just replace the roof.

[behtypa]

Originally Posted by tdhg566

I encountered this exact scenario some years ago at a younger age. I opted to do the repairs myself, including replacing bad decking (for far less than $2000-3000). I ended up selling the house before a new roof was needed.

Part of the question, which you didn't specify, is whether you have ready access to the cash for the repair, or whether you have to borrow the money, cash out a CD, withdraw money from your 401k, etc etc etc. I'll assume the money is available now and neither alternative is better or worse from a cash flow standpoint.

So if you're unable to do the repairs yourself, IMHO the relatively small cost difference makes the repairs a bad investment, and I would just replace the roof.

Thank you. The cash is available. And I could do it myself + recruit someone, but my expertise is not good enough for a complete supervision. I plan to stay in this house for 10-20 years, so this can be considered as a peace of mind or ... as a bad investment. Depends how you look at it.

So would you still do the whole roof?

[behtypa]

Originally Posted by tdhg566

I encountered this exact scenario some years ago at a younger age. I opted to do the repairs myself, including replacing bad decking (for far less than $2000-3000). I ended up selling the house before a new roof was needed.

Part of the question, which you didn't specify, is whether you have ready access to the cash for the repair, or whether you have to borrow the money, cash out a CD, withdraw money from your 401k, etc etc etc. I'll assume the money is available now and neither alternative is better or worse from a cash flow standpoint.

So if you're unable to do the repairs yourself, IMHO the relatively small cost difference makes the repairs a bad investment, and I would just replace the roof.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that it is a steep roof (10/8, 10/10, something like this) so doing it alone and with no prior experience is hard and dangerous. I would gladly do it myself if it was flat, but this is not the case, unfortunately.