Owens Corning shingles
GAF snow country shingle over ridge vent

What mods need to be made to the existing roof to get to ridge venting? May only need to be done to the main roof line which runs coast to coast (east to west). There are 4 or 5 dormer/gables that are small and may not need the venting. The main peak roof line is well above them anyway.

I think they went dark to contrast with white siding (we bought it......didn't build it). So will need to come up with acceptable lighter color. I put white shingles on chicken house for that very reason, but it has red barn siding.

Additional reason for more ventilation is house was built on a slab. HVAC ducts run in attic. AC in hot attic. Heat in cold attic. Cannot say enough bad things about that. Ought to be a hanging offense.

Cost estimate was $25k plus.

If you install ridge vent,,,,,, you need to close gable vents,,,,, just my humble opinion…….

Yes standing seam eliminates exposed fasteners. from my understanding. It has a clip that goes over the Ridge of the steel and under the next piece going down.

Looked to cost 3x as much as pole barn steel when I looked. Seems like it was also heavier gage also.

I put on stone coated steel singles five or six years back. Expensive, but they look good and the wind don't take em' off.

Spent some time looking at the plastic panel ridge vent products. In theory can see how they work. Many utubes that are almost falling down funny in how bad they are. Example? Watching guys explain why you need a 3 inch nail to hold it down, then driving it into a 1/2" roof deck.........but not into a rafter under the deck. They would also do better to show attic temps before and after install. Perhaps some flagging tape showing air flow thru the vent, once installed.

But aside from all that, we get heavy, wind driven rain.........and when snow is heavy, lots of wind driven powder. Spindrift. Would be concerned both rain and snow could get driven into the ridge, but maybe no worse than mushroom caps allow now?

Not sure what we did right but my contractor and me are scratching our heads. Ranch style house that is going on 29 years with the same roof. Ridge vent and soffit vents when new. I added the biggest peak vent on one end to address a moisture problem caused by a faulty install of a fresh air duct. Found problem after install of peak vent. Just now starting to think about maybe a new roof. Was wanting to go metal but you folks have me pulling back on the reins. Any advice? Shingles now are medium brown. No tabs broke yet and just starting to see fiberglass. These shingles are nothing special.

Epilogue.............

Roofing guys just pulled out yesterday.......house now sporting a new roof using Malarkey roof system using Vista AR shingles.......and nearly 100 linear feet of Certainteed ridge vent.

Contractor thought old original shingles were a mid level Tamko shingle.........and had a total of 12 mushroom caps, each with about 8" round tube for vent, plus 3 open gable vents. Total roof vent area required for a 150:1 ratio was around 1,150 square inches. It had around 300 square inches. 2 or 3 areas above dormers may have been blocked off with no roof vents at all....meaning 2 or 3 really hot pockets. At one point I put my smoker temp monitor up in attic and on days when it was over 90F outside, it was 30 degrees plus hotter up in the attic. The internet seems to think 130F plus attic temp is when shingles start to cook off. This roof had probably exceeded that many times each summer. Had a 1.5 inch rain in 1 hour the other day and when it was over, noticed a big pile of roof grit at downspout. Gutters full of it.....formed little sand bars.

New roof now has around 2,400 square inches of ridge type roof vent area. Mushroom caps gone......gable vents blocked off.....dormer areas all now have ridge vent. All soffit areas are vented, so should have at least that much low vent areas. There are the foam chutes over the plates to allow roof vents to draw soffit make up air, but still have concerns if those are working right, Some look to me like they remain blocked off. Can't get to any of them to tell how much air is flowing thru them.

As noted, in before, attic temps running 30F plus hotter in attic than outside. As of now, it's 86 outside and same smoker temp probe is running 104F in attic, so around 18F difference......which makes me think soffit vents not working to fullest extent. But even so, bedroom over the garage that used to be hot now same temp as rest of house. AC not running as much.

Don't think any of the 8 to 10 guys working on roof habla ingles, so hard to communicate with those guys, but foreman was local guy and he kept an eye on things. Those guys were workers. Showed up before dawn and left AFTER the sun went down.........took 30 min at noon to eat. Otherwise no group breaks during 12 hour day. Understand why people want to hire them.

Our previous house I went with steel using the shingles as under layer . We sold that place, it was in town, so I can't say how long term has been but while we were there no problems

Insurance companies will also charge more for a metal roof for that same reason. The cost to replace a metal roof is higher than a standard shingled roof. I always thought that was strange too, as the more expensive roof will stand up to the elements better than a standard shingled roof. Your chance of a claim with an upgraded roof is lower.

As I understand it, you can't put a new roof over Architectural shingles, it won't lay right.