Roofing

Sizing a Dumpster for a Roof Tear-Off

Roofing is where sizing goes wrong most often, and here it is almost always the same two things: a second layer, or soft decking under it.

The one number that matters: squares

Roofers measure in squares. One square is 100 square feet of roof surface. A typical house across Santa Rosa County runs somewhere between 18 and 30 squares — the older Milton and Bagdad houses at the lower end, the newer Pace and Navarre builds higher.

If you do not know your square count, your roofer does, and it is the first thing to ask.

What a square of roofing weighs

The overwhelming majority of residential roofs here are composition shingle, which keeps the arithmetic simple — until you find two layers, or tile.

Composition sizing table

Add a size if the decking is coming off too, and step down to a 10 yard with swaps for concrete or clay tile.

The second layer problem

The most common sizing mistake on roofing work anywhere, and common here because of when a lot of this housing was built and re-roofed.

Plenty of houses across the county have had a second layer of composition laid directly over the original rather than a full tear-off. It also roughly doubles the tear-off weight.

How to check before you book:

• Look at the rake edge from the ground. A double layer usually shows as a noticeably thicker band at the roof edge.
• Look at the flashing and drip edge. Two layers often sit proud of them.
• Ask your roofer to confirm at inspection. They will know within a minute of getting up there.

If it turns up on the day, call us. A swap mid-job is far cheaper than an overloaded container that cannot legally be hauled, and the crew keeps working while the truck is on its way.

What Gulf Coast weather does underneath

The local factor, and it is different from what a northern roof suffers.

There is no ice damming here. What there is instead:

• Wind uplift. Repeated high-wind events work at edges and ridges, and damage concentrates there. Expect the perimeter to be the worst of it.
• Driven rain. Water goes sideways in a storm and gets under shingles that would shed a vertical downpour perfectly well.
• Heat and UV. Genuine shingle killers. Cycles here are shorter than the warranty implies, and southern and western faces age faster than northern ones.
• Humidity. Anything that gets damp under a roof here stays damp, and rot follows quickly.
• Nail pops from thermal movement, which look minor and are how water gets in.

The practical consequence: soft decking is more likely here than the age of the roof alone suggests, particularly at the eaves, at valleys and around penetrations.

Decking is the hidden variable

You do not know the condition of the decking until the shingles are off, and it is the single most common reason a roofing container runs over.

Plywood and OSB are heavy — roughly 40 to 60 pounds a sheet. A roof needing widespread decking replacement can add a ton or more that nobody budgeted for, on top of the shingles.

On older houses here there is a second possibility: plank decking rather than sheet. Dimensional boards laid across the rafters were standard before plywood and are heavier again per square foot — and Milton and Bagdad have plenty of housing that old.

Two responses, both fine:

• Size up one when you book if the roof is old, has taken storm damage, or carries a second layer.
• Accept you may need a swap and factor it in.

What does not work is overfilling. A container loaded above the rail cannot legally be hauled, and the truck will leave without it.

Storm and insurance work

A large share of roofing work here is storm-driven rather than planned.

• Photograph everything before anything moves. The adjuster will want it, and once the shingles are in a container they are gone.
• Do not dispose of damaged material until the claim is settled unless your adjuster has confirmed you can.
• Check whether your policy covers debris removal — it is often a separate line and people are surprised by it.
• Book early after a major event. Every roofer and every hauler in the county is busy the same fortnight, and containers genuinely run out. More on that here.
• Separate fencing, gutters and screen framing if the same storm took those down — different streams and different weights.
• Emergency tarping is different from clearing up. Do it, and keep the receipts.

Placement, canopy and the nail problem

Roofing containers need to sit close to the house, and here there are three recurring constraints.

Tree canopy. The big one. Twenty-two feet of clear height to raise the bed, and mature live oak over a driveway is frequently lower. On a job with a mid-course swap that has to work twice.

Surface. Sand and shell driveways are common here and behave differently under a loaded truck than concrete. Tell us which you have.

Rain. An open container through a heavy shower gains real weight, and a tear-off is exactly the material that soaks. Ask for a cover if the job is running across several days.

Everywhere: boards go under the rails as standard, and a tear-off sheds an enormous quantity of nails. A magnet sweep of the drive and the street at the end is twenty minutes well spent, and it is the single most common complaint homeowners have about roofing work.