One of the better parts of being in business for a long time is getting called back to a house you already know.
This home is on Davenport Drive in Far North Dallas, just off Campbell Road between Hillcrest Road and Preston Road in the 75248 area. Bert Roofing installed the previous roof here in 2007. Over the years, we also did some maintenance intended to help prolong its useful life.
Eventually, storm damage and the age of the roof made replacement the better option.
There was also a personal connection to this project. The homeowners are longtime friends of ours and are connected with St. Martin’s Wine Bistro, one of Dallas’ longtime French restaurants.
For decades, St. Martin’s was a fixture on Greenville Avenue, near the former San Francisco Rose. The restaurant has since moved to Bryan Street in Old East Dallas, but it remains very much a Dallas institution. Our family has been going there for many years, and Bert Roofing has held company Christmas gatherings there on more than one occasion.
We have always been fond of St. Martin’s and are happy to recommend it. It is also the kind of local connection that makes a project like this a little different from simply putting another roof on another house.
Returning to a Roof We Installed in 2007
There is something useful about having history with a property.
When we installed the previous roof in 2007, we obviously did not know exactly how long it would remain in service. Roof life depends on the product, installation, ventilation, maintenance and, perhaps most importantly in North Texas, the weather it encounters over the years.
That roof made it through a long stretch of Dallas heat, thunderstorms, wind and hail. Along the way, we performed some maintenance to help extend its life rather than automatically recommending replacement every time an issue came up.
Eventually, however, there is a point where continuing to repair an older storm-damaged roof no longer makes much economic sense. In this case, replacement was the right decision.
From our standpoint, being asked to install the next roof is particularly satisfying. The roofing business has a relatively high turnover rate among contractors. When a customer can call the same company that roofed the home nearly two decades earlier, that says something about both the relationship and the value of longevity in this business.
A Small Area of Rotten Roof Decking
Once the existing roofing materials were removed, we found a small area of rotten decking over the garage.
This was not a complicated problem, but it is a good example of why the roof deck needs to be inspected once the old shingles and underlayment are removed. In this particular area, the garage is open underneath, so the deteriorated wood was also readily visible from below.
We have a photograph showing the damaged decking before it was replaced.
Rotten or deteriorated decking needs to be corrected before installing a new roofing system. Shingles and underlayment depend on the wood deck beneath them for a solid fastening surface. Covering questionable decking simply hides the problem rather than fixing it.
In this case, the damaged area was limited. We removed the affected material, repaired the deck and moved forward with the new roof.
Other than that, this was a relatively straightforward reroof. There was no unusual structural problem or complicated roof detail that needed to be turned into a story. Sometimes a good roofing project is simply one where the existing roof is removed, the deck is inspected and repaired where necessary, and the new roofing system is installed correctly.
Owens Corning Duration Class 3 Shingles
For the new roof, we installed Owens Corning TruDefinition Duration shingles in Driftwood.
The Duration shingles used on this project carry a UL 2218 Class 3 impact-resistance rating. Impact-resistant shingles are designed and tested to better withstand impact than conventional asphalt shingles. They are not hail-proof, particularly given the size of some of the hailstones we see in North Texas, but the increased impact resistance is a worthwhile feature for many Dallas homeowners.
Bert Roofing is an Owens Corning Preferred Contractor, and Owens Corning is one of the major roofing manufacturers we regularly install.
The roofing system included synthetic underlayment, ice and water protection in the valleys, new drip edge, flashing at roof penetrations, Owens Corning starter shingles and manufacturer-specific ridge shingles.
The Driftwood color was also a good fit for the house. It has enough variation to work well with the brick and lighter exterior finishes without making the roof visually dominant.
Roofing in Far North Dallas and 75248
Davenport is a north-south residential street running through an established part of Far North Dallas. The area around Campbell Road between Hillcrest and Preston contains a large inventory of well-maintained homes, many of which are now cycling through their second, third or even later-generation roofing systems.
That makes 75248 a somewhat different roofing market from newer parts of North Texas.
On an established home, there is often more history to consider. There may have been previous repairs, multiple roofing systems, older flashing details, ventilation changes or decking that has been exposed to several decades of Dallas weather. The important part is to evaluate the house that is actually there rather than treating every roof as though it were new construction.
This Davenport Drive project illustrates that point well.
We installed the prior roof in 2007. We helped maintain it as it aged. When storm damage and age eventually made another replacement appropriate, the homeowners called us again.
There was a small amount of damaged decking to address, but otherwise the project was straightforward. The result is a new Owens Corning Duration Class 3 roof designed to give the home another long service life.
For Bert Roofing, the most meaningful part may simply be returning to the same house years later.
We have been roofing homes in Dallas since 1988, with Bert family roofing roots going back even further. A repeat customer after nearly two decades is a good reminder that roofing is not just about getting the next job. It is about doing work well enough that, when the next roof is eventually needed, the homeowner still knows who to call.
Bert Roofing provides roof replacement, roof repair, storm-damage inspections and impact-resistant roofing systems throughout Far North Dallas, including the 75248 area.
