How much wind damage is needed to replace an entire woodshake roof?

Hi everybody. I am currently working on a woodshake claim where farmers insurance company has agreed to pay for the repairs of the ridge of the house but not the entire thing. The only issue I have is that when I replace the ridge the new wood is going to look funny up against the old warped wood. It seems to me that it would be unfair to the customer to replace just the ridge in this case... I mean, I wouldn't want just the ridge replaced if I were the homeowner. I would be the laughing joke of the neighborhood... Thoughts????

---Hail damage is another wrinkle that can only be answered by asking how much "life" was taken from the roof by the hail. ---I am in the NW and what I constantly see is a 15 year old shake roof with a bit of wind damage at the ridge. The owner wants a new roof because his old dilapidated roof didn't survive the latest windstorm. I am not sympathetic. Lanny

I just looked at a 5 year old shake roof with the same problem, plus there was hail with this storm about 2 weeks ago. QUite a few ridges were broken up and the homeowner found multiple pieces of shake on the grounds. Only damage to the field I can see is just small pieces of shake edges missing or loose on the roof. Also many hail spots on the shakes themselves. Doesnt really look like damage, just brought out some of the original color. SHould they get a new roof?

Woody left out the silver stage and the green stage. We get five stages here. Those are #2 and 5, but 5 is restricted to north slopes. I slipped in four 2X6 deck boards on a repair of my old back deck. I got a bargain on cedar, very yellow color on these boards. The existing were heart redwood turned grey/black. Cedar went silver and I kept thinking I'd have to change them because they would never come together. Can't tell the difference now. Of course my vision is not what it once was. Maybe if I just shut my eyes altogether and crawl around on my hands and knees I will be able to feel the difference. You never know.

---We have replaced lots of ridge and no one ever complains about the contrast in the new vs the old. ---Use treated ridge which has been darkened due to the chemical treating. It won't match exactly but looks close and from the ground looks fine. ---How old is the roof? Missing ridge is certainly no call to replace an entire roof. ---And I wonder about people using their insurance company to fix missing ridge. A claim is a claim is a claim...and in today's market rates can rise very fast. As a homeowner I would never turn in a claim under a few thousand. ---Last week we repaired about 80 feet of ridge on a house. All the existing ridge that was worth saving I stapled down with 2 inch staples. The missing ridge (less than one bundle) was replaced with treated ridge and stapled down as well. Entire job took 20 minutes (2 people) and I charged $150. ---In answer to the question, the repair costs should not be over 10- 20% of the cost of a new roof for older roofs and over 50% for newer roofs. "Tune-ups" to buy another year or 2 can be worthwhile. ---It depends on the life expectancy of the repairs. Why spend money on a roof that needs to be replaced in 2 years anyway? I get asked this question about roof cleaning. Roof cleaning does not add years to a roof. Rather it slows down the decay which might add some years IF there are any years left. Thus, if the roof only has 5 years left save the money towards a new roof. Lanny

How soon the new ridge will match is very climate dependent. Over here on the wet side of the NW, shakes go from gold to brown to charcoal in about two years. My inlaws used to have a condo with shakes in Utah, and after 8 years, you could still see some gold color.

I agree with JSC that the repair money would be better spent aplied to a new roof.

Shake and wood shingle ridge replacement was a frequent thing up to several years ago along with a "tune up", which is just spot replacement of bad shingles, cleaning off debris, resealing flashings, etc. When the ridge is replaced you often have to replace the final shorty course as well, because it's trashed.

Then came the treatment of the entire roof with a chemical solution that temporarily changed the color back from gray to a brown, somewhat resembling the original cedar color. This was sold with the dubious expectation that it prolonged the overall service life, and often went for $2500-3500. or more.

Since insurance companies began denying coverage on non-treated wood roofs due to fire liability, most times the wood roof is converted to comp shingles these days, especially since the several thousand dollars that can be spent repairing an old wood roof is better spent on a whole new one.

How much wood could a wood chuck,chuck?if a woodchuck could chuck wood!It all falls back on the policy,what does it cover and is there visible wind damage to the roof.Insurance companys dont pay unless theres verifyble damage to the roof.Meaning that adjuster has to be able to get pics of wind damage to prove his claim.