The Roofers Found Rotten Decking. Is That a Real Change Order?

Why Nobody Can Quote This Up Front

No roofer can tell you the condition of your decking before the old roof comes off. The shingles, the underlayment and often a previous layer are all sitting on top of it. An experienced estimator can tell you it is likely, on a roof of a certain age with a history of leaks or poor ventilation, but nobody can tell you how many sheets.

That is why a decent estimate carries a stated price per sheet for decking replacement, agreed before work starts. If your contract does not have one, the number gets invented on the day, and that is where the trouble begins.

What Rotten Decking Actually Looks Like

You should be able to see it yourself. Sound decking is uniform, light and firm. Failed decking is darker, sometimes almost black, and it gives underfoot. Delaminated plywood separates into visible layers at the edges. Older board sheathing can be sound in one plank and soft in the next.

A homeowner in this situation described it as looking real to an untrained eye, dark and spongy, and said the problem was that he could not judge the number. That is exactly right. The damage is usually easy to see. The quantity is what you cannot verify from the ground.

The Four Questions That Settle It

Ask to see it before it is covered. Not a photograph on a phone from across the roof, the actual area, or clear photographs of each sheet being replaced with something in frame for scale.

Ask what the per sheet price is and whether it matches the contract. Ask how many sheets, and get that number in writing before the work is done rather than on the final invoice. Ask to see the old sheets, which should still be on site or in the dumpster.

A contractor who has genuinely found rot will welcome all four questions. One who resists any of them is telling you something.

Where Rot Concentrates in Central Ohio

It is not random. Decking fails at the eaves where ice dams push water back under the shingles, in valleys where several planes concentrate water into one line, around chimneys and pipe penetrations where old flashing has been sealed rather than rebuilt, and in attics with unbalanced ventilation where moisture has nowhere to go.

If someone tells you the middle of an open, well ventilated plane is rotten while the eaves and valleys are fine, that is worth a second look. Water does not usually work that way.

Why Going Over the Old Roof Hides This

Installing a new roof over the existing one is faster and cheaper on the day, and it means nobody ever looks at the deck. Whatever is soft stays soft, now with more weight on it and a new roof sealing the moisture in.

That is the honest argument for a full tear off. It is not that the second layer fails sooner, it is that you never find out what you were building on.

What We Do

We photograph the deck once the tear off exposes it, every area we intend to replace, and we show you before anything is covered back over. The per sheet price is in the estimate before work starts, so the only variable on the day is the count, and you see the count.

We would rather have that conversation on the roof with photographs than in an argument about a final invoice.