It happens every year. We get a massive snowstorm across Northern Illinois, the temperature drops into the single digits, and the phone at Peerless Roofing Inc. starts ringing.
On the other end of the line is a panicked homeowner. They went up to their attic to grab some holiday decorations, or they woke up after a heavy thaw, and they found a puddle of water sitting on their drywall. Their roof is leaking, and it’s the middle of January.
The panic usually stems from one major misconception: people assume you cannot replace a roof in the winter. They imagine they have to throw a blue plastic tarp over their house and just wait it out, hoping their ceiling doesn’t cave in before the spring thaw arrives in April.
Let’s clear this up right now. You absolutely can replace a roof in the middle of winter in McHenry County. You don’t have to wait, and honestly, if your roof has a major failure, waiting is the worst thing you can do.
Here is exactly what you need to know about winter roofing, how professional crews handle the cold, and what to expect if you need an emergency replacement.
The Danger of Waiting Until Spring
If you spot an active leak in December and decide to just “deal with it” until the weather gets nice, you are taking a massive gamble with your house.
Water doesn’t just drip into a bucket. When a roof fails in the winter, moisture gets trapped inside your attic framing. That moisture soaks into your fiberglass insulation, making it heavy and completely useless at holding heat.
Worse, wet wood in a dark, warm attic is the perfect recipe for black mold. By the time April rolls around, a simple roofing job could turn into a full blown mold remediation project. You might end up having to rip out all your insulation and replace large sections of rotted roof decking.
If the roof needs to be replaced, it’s much cheaper and safer to do it immediately, regardless of the temperature outside.
The Challenges of Cold Weather Roofing (And How We Beat Them)
We won’t pretend winter roofing is exactly the same as summer roofing. The cold weather changes how materials behave, and it requires a roofing crew to alter their normal processes.
If a roofer just slaps shingles down in 15-degree weather the exact same way they would in 85-degree weather, you are going to have problems. Here are the specific hurdles of winter installation and how experienced local crews overcome them.
1. Brittle Shingles
Asphalt shingles contain petroleum products. In the summer heat, they are flexible, bendy, and easy to cut. When the temperature drops below freezing, they get incredibly stiff. If you bend a freezing cold shingle, it will snap in half like a dry cracker.
The Solution: Professional roofers don’t leave the materials sitting outside in the snow overnight. We keep the bundles of shingles in a heated warehouse or a warm truck until the very last minute. When they are carried up to the roof, they are still relatively warm and flexible. The crew has to work carefully and deliberately to avoid cracking the material while nailing it down.
2. The Nail Gun Pressure
Roofers use pneumatic nail guns powered by air compressors to secure the shingles to your roof deck. In the summer, those guns fire the nails in flush with the surface. But in the winter, a stiff, frozen shingle doesn’t have any give to it. If the air pressure on the nail gun is set too high, the nail head will blow right through the shingle, leaving a hole and providing zero holding power. If it’s set too low, the nail sticks up, and the next shingle won’t lay flat.
The Solution: A good crew will constantly adjust the PSI on their air compressors throughout a winter day. They monitor how the nails are sinking into the wood and make sure every single fastener is perfectly flush, keeping the shingles secure without damaging the fiberglass matting.
3. The Tar Sealant Strip (The Biggest Winter Challenge)
If you turn an asphalt shingle over, you will see a shiny line of tar running across the back. This is the thermal sealant strip.
When a roof is installed in July, the sun beats down on the shingles, heating up that tar strip. The tar melts and glues itself to the shingle underneath it. This creates a solid, wind-proof watertight seal across your entire roof.
In January, the sun isn’t hot enough to melt that tar. If you just nail the shingles down and leave them, the edges will remain loose. When the next winter windstorm comes howling through McHenry County, those loose shingles can catch the wind and rip right off the roof.
The Solution: When we install a new roof in the dead of winter, we have to manually seal the shingles. The crew uses specialized asphalt roofing cement to hand-seal the individual tabs. This holds the shingles down tight against the winter wind. When the weather finally warms up in the spring, the factory tar strip will activate and permanently bond the roof together.
The Tear-Off Process in the Snow
People often ask us what happens if it snows while the roof is torn off.
We watch the weather radar obsessively. We do not tear off a roof if a blizzard is rolling in. We pick clear, dry days for the actual tear-off process.
Even in the winter, the old roof comes completely off down to the bare wood decking. We have to inspect the plywood underneath to make sure it isn’t rotted from the leak that caused you to call us in the first place.
If there is a dusting of snow or heavy frost on the wood decking, the crew sweeps it off completely. The wood has to be clean and relatively dry before the new underlayment goes down. We use heavy-duty synthetic underlayment that doesn’t wrinkle or tear in the cold like old-school felt paper does.
We also make sure to install a premium ice and water shield along all the eaves and in the roof valleys. This thick, rubberized membrane is crucial for preventing the kind of ice dams that cause so many winter leaks in our area.
Winter Roofing Requires Strict Safety Protocols
Roofing is a dangerous job on a beautiful summer day. Add ice, frost, snow, and freezing wind to the mix, and it becomes incredibly hazardous. A steep roof covered in morning frost is basically a slide.
You do not want a random guy with a truck trying to fix your roof in January. You need a fully insured, established company that takes worker safety seriously.
During winter installations, our crews utilize heavy-duty roof jacks and wooden planks to create safe walking paths across the roof deck. They wear specialized cold-weather traction boots and are required to use strict safety harnesses and fall-protection gear tied directly to the structural framing of the house. We also work shorter hours during the winter, capitalizing on the warmest parts of the mid-day sun and packing up before the evening frost sets back in.
The Winter Cleanup Process
Cleaning up a job site in December is much trickier than in July. In the summer, we lay massive breathable tarps around the perimeter of the house to catch all the old shingles, nails, and falling debris as we tear the old roof off.
In the winter, if the ground is covered in a foot of snow, finding every last nail gets tough. The debris doesn’t just sit on the grass; it sinks into the snowbanks.
To combat this, we lay heavy plastic tarps over the snow to catch as much as possible. After the job is done, we run high-powered magnetic sweepers over the driveways and walkways to pull stray nails out of the snow and ice. But we are always upfront with our winter clients: once the snow completely melts in the spring, we will gladly come back out for a secondary magnetic sweep to make absolutely sure your lawn and driveway are safe for bare feet and car tires.
Don’t Wait for the Spring Thaw
If you have water coming into your house right now, you need to act. The longer you wait, the worse the structural damage will be.
Be highly suspicious of out-of-town storm chasers who knock on your door after a winter storm. Winter roofing requires local knowledge. You need a crew who knows how to handle the cold-weather adhesives, understands the local building codes for ice barriers, and will actually be around next spring to honor their warranty.
If you are dealing with an active leak, damaged gutters and downspouts, or missing shingles, get a local professional out to your house immediately. We can get the property secured, assess the damage, and get a brand new, watertight roof installed before the spring rains even start.
Need Emergency Winter Roof Repairs? Let’s Fix It Now. Don’t let a winter roof leak turn into a massive mold and rot problem by waiting until spring. If you have water coming into your home, the team at Peerless Roofing Inc. is ready to help right now.
We have been handling emergency winter roof repair and full replacements in McHenry County for over 30 years. Our crews know exactly how to handle cold-weather materials to ensure your home is completely protected against the elements.
Call us today at (815) 669-5070 or visit our contact page to request your FREE estimate. All work is 100% guaranteed, and we offer senior and veteran discounts.
Peerless Roofing Inc., 4569 Prime Parkway, McHenry, IL 60050-7036 Peerless Roofing Inc. is locally owned and operated right here in McHenry, IL, proudly serving the surrounding areas including Algonquin, Cary, Crystal Lake, Huntley, and Woodstock.