How Old Is My Roof, and Can It Still Be Repaired?

You can date an asphalt roof by measuring a single shingle, and the number that matters is 5. A shingle 36 inches wide showing a 5 inch exposure is the old standard three tab format, discontinued around 2008, which puts that roof at roughly 18 years old at the very least. Arrowhead Roofing has been taking these roofs off in northeast Oklahoma since 1987, and that one measurement usually settles both questions at once, because a format nobody makes any more cannot be matched in a repair.

Note: this is a general guide only. Shingle dimensions vary by manufacturer and product, and the test below identifies one specific older format rather than dating every roof. Have the roof looked at before deciding between a repair and a replacement.

These are the formats you are most likely to be looking at, and what each one tells you.

The Short Answer

Age and repairability are the same question more often than people expect.

A roof can be repaired when three things are true: the damage is local rather than general, the deck underneath is sound, and a matching shingle can still be obtained. Lose any one of those and a repair stops being a repair and starts being a patch that shows.

The third one is the one homeowners never see coming, and it is why the measurement above is worth taking before anybody quotes you.

How to Date a Roof Without Getting on It

Four methods, roughly in order of how reliable they are.

Measure a shingle. From a ladder at the eave, or from a photograph with something of known size in frame. Width and exposure together identify the format, and the format brackets the age.

Check the paperwork. A permit record, a closing disclosure, a home inspection report from when you bought, or a previous owner’s file will often date the roof outright.

Look for a patch that no longer matches. A repaired section that has weathered to a different shade tells you two things at once: roughly when the repair happened, and that the roof has been ageing since.

Read the wear. Granule cover thins from the top down and from the sunny side first, so an eave with bare dark patches, granules in the gutters, and curling at the edges is a roof well into the back half of its life.

What Makes a Roof Non-Repairable

Four conditions, and any one of them is enough on its own.

The shingle is no longer made. This is the common one and it has nothing to do with how bad the damage is. If the format is discontinued, there is no matching material, and a repair leaves a visible block of the wrong shingle on the roof.

The shingle has gone brittle. An old shingle cannot be lifted to get a nail out without cracking the course above it, so the repair damages more than it fixes. You can test this from a ladder: lift a tab gently at the edge and see whether it flexes or resists.

The deck is soft. Damage found at the surface often turns out to be a decking problem, and there is nothing to fasten a new shingle to.

The damage is general, not local. Repair fixes a location. If the whole slope is at the same stage, fixing one part of it just moves the conversation a few months down the road.

When a Repair Is the Right Call

Often, and we would rather say so than sell a roof that is not needed yet.

A roof with years left in it, sound decking, and a shingle still in production is a repair, not a replacement. A few displaced shingles after a wind event, a failed pipe boot, a flashing detail that was wrong from the start: these are repairs, and treating them as replacements is how a trade earns a reputation it deserves.

What Changes the Answer

Two roofs of identical age can land on opposite sides of this decision, and these are the reasons.

Which slope the damage is on

Sun exposure ages a roof unevenly, so a south facing slope is routinely years ahead of a north facing one on the same house. Damage on the older side is more likely to make the whole slope a replacement.

Whether the roof has been through a storm

Age and storm damage are different questions with different answers, and they get confused constantly. An older roof with genuine storm damage is a claim. An older roof that is simply worn out is not.

What is underneath

A roof laid over an existing layer hides whatever condition the deck was in, and in Oklahoma that layover was not a code compliant assembly in the first place, because OAC 748:20 prohibits it. Finding one changes the scope of everything above it.

Related Questions

How long should the roof have lasted anyway?

Twenty years for a three tab and thirty for a laminate are the commonly cited figures, and hail shortens both here. How long does a roof last? covers the material ranges and what northeast Oklahoma does to them.

If a storm ended it early, is that a claim?

It depends on the documentation and on the policy, and the documentation is the part you can influence. How do you get insurance to pay for a roof replacement in Oklahoma? covers what gets recorded and how.

Can they just put a second layer over it?

Not in Oklahoma on a shingle roof. The state amendment prohibits an additional application of asphalt shingles where one already exists. What building code applies to roofs in Oklahoma? covers that and the three other state amendments.

Will the repair be obvious from the street?

Age is what makes a correctly matched shingle stop matching, and the honest goal is a repair a reasonable person would not notice from the ground. Will a roof repair match my existing shingles? covers colour codes and weathering.

See Also

The two answers closest to this one are what actually wears a roof out here, which is the general version of this question, and what the code requires once a roof does come off.