Three McAllen houses in two weeks, all with the same thing wrong at the edge of the roof, and all three needing a full replacement on a roof that should have had twenty more years in it. The cause is the same every time, and it is not something a homeowner could have spotted from the driveway.
The edge of your roof is where it starts
The first course of shingles at the eave is supposed to be a starter strip — a purpose-made strip with its own sealant line, so the shingles above it bond down and water running off the roof cannot get underneath. It is not an optional upgrade. It is how the edge of a shingle roof is designed to work.
On all three of these houses the installer used a leftover 30-year architectural shingle instead, hammered down and in places glued. It looks close enough from the ground. But a field shingle in that position leaves a small bump, the edge never pulls down tight, and there is a gap where there should be a seal.
What that gap does over eight years
Every hard rain pushes water into that gap and behind the edge of the roof. From there it runs down the back of the drip edge and into the fascia board — the board that faces the street — and into the soffit panel underneath it. The wood stays wet, and in Valley humidity it does not dry out between storms.
Nothing shows on your ceiling. Nothing shows on your shingles. What eventually shows is paint bubbling on the fascia, a soffit panel starting to sag, maybe wasps getting into the eave. By then the wood has been rotting for years. The roof on the house in our video is eight or nine years old and it is done.
Why it is never just the wood
Homeowners ask whether we can replace the rotted fascia and leave the roof alone. If the rot came from one bad valley or a cracked pipe boot, yes — cut it out, replace it, fix the thing above it. But when the starter strip is missing along the entire eave, water is getting in along the entire eave. New fascia under the same bad edge rots the same way.
And on these three roofs the starter strip was not the only thing. Exposed nails, hips and ridges never properly terminated, flashing that was not done right. A crew that does not know how to finish an edge usually does not know how to finish a ridge either. The whole roof has to come off.
Nobody is trying to cheat you
This is the part worth understanding. In most of these cases the installer was not cutting a corner to save money. He was taught to do it that way, or never taught at all, and he has been doing it that way for twenty-five years. He has never had to answer for a roof five years later, because by the time the fascia rots he has changed his phone number or the company is gone.
Here in the Valley everyone is a roofer. Work gets contracted and subcontracted down the line until the person actually on your roof has no relationship with the company that sold you the job, and no reason to care what it looks like in a decade.
What to ask before you hire anyone
- Ask whether they are using a real starter strip at the eave, and what brand.
- Ask whether they are certified with the manufacturer whose shingles they are installing. Certification is what backs the enhanced system warranties.
- Look them up with a third party — Google reviews are the easiest one — and read what people said two and three years after the job, not just the week it finished.
- Ask what happens if you call them in five years. Then notice whether the answer is specific.
- Get photos of the edge of your roof, the hips and ridges, and every pipe penetration.
If your fascia is already going
We will come look at it and tell you how far it actually goes, which is usually further than what you can see. Read more about soffit and fascia repair in McAllen, or see how we handle a full roof replacement.
Watch the whole walkthrough here: No starter strip = rotted wood, the McAllen roof mistake we keep finding.
A free roof inspection in McAllen takes under an hour and you get photos of whatever we find. Frontline Roofing — McAllen, Mission, Edinburg and the Rio Grande Valley. Call (956) 586-5711.