Roofing

Sizing a Dumpster for a Roof Tear-Off in Enfield

Roofing is where sizing goes wrong most often, and around here there is a second problem: what the ice dams have been doing under the shingles.

The one number that matters: squares

Roofers measure in squares. One square is 100 square feet of roof surface. A typical Enfield colonial or raised ranch runs somewhere between 22 and 32 squares depending on footprint and pitch; the older village houses are often 16 to 22, and the substantial older property in Longmeadow or Windsor can run past 40.

If you do not know your square count, your roofer does, and it is the first thing to ask.

What a square of roofing weighs

Run the arithmetic. A 28 square architectural shingle roof at 350 lb per square is roughly 9,800 pounds — just under five tons before underlayment. That is at or past the allowance on a 20 yard.

Shingle sizing table

Slate is a different calculation

Worth its own section because this region genuinely has it, and getting it wrong is expensive.

Slate runs 800 to 1,500 pounds per square — three to five times asphalt shingle. A 25 square slate roof can be fifteen tons or more, which is well past what any single container can legally carry.

Slate therefore goes in a 10 yard, part-filled, with multiple swaps. Never a 30 yard: you would fill it to a third and it still could not be hauled. If you are taking slate off an older house in Longmeadow, Windsor or Suffield, tell us at the booking stage and we will plan the swap schedule rather than discovering it on the day.

The second layer problem

Plenty of older houses here have a second layer of shingle laid over the original. It roughly doubles the tear-off weight, and people often do not know until the crew is up there.

Look at the rake edge from the ground, where a double layer often shows as a noticeably thicker band, and ask your roofer to confirm during the inspection. If it turns out on the day, call us — a swap mid-job is far cheaper than an overloaded container that cannot be hauled.

Ice dams and what they hide

This is the New England roofing problem and it changes tear-off sizing more than anything else.

Ice dams form when heat escaping through the roof melts the underside of the snowpack, the water runs down and refreezes at the cold eave, and the resulting ridge backs water up under the shingles. Inside, it shows as a ceiling stain. Outside, it has usually been soaking the decking and the insulation for weeks.

So on any roof being replaced because of ice dam damage, budget for more decking than you think and for wet insulation coming out too. Both are much heavier than their dry equivalents. We size those jobs up on volume and down on the weight allowance, and we say so before you book rather than after.

The Town will not take shingles

Straightforward but worth saying, because people assume the bulky appointment covers it.

Shingles are on the Town's excluded list, by name. So is sheet rock, so is concrete. And demolition material from home improvement cannot go in any tipper regardless.

On top of that, if a contractor is routing debris through Town disposal, the building permit must accompany them. The alternative the Town names is a private waste company.

So a re-roof needs a container, full stop. If a roofer quotes you a job with "debris removal included", a container is almost certainly how they are doing it, and it is worth confirming rather than assuming.

Placement and site cleanup

• Tight to the drip line on the elevation being torn off, where the driveway allows.
• Doors facing the approach so ground crew can walk material in.
• Clear of overhead lines and mature trees. The truck bed needs roughly twenty-two feet of vertical clearance to tip.
• On boards, and on ground that will carry the weight — particularly in spring, when the frost is coming out.
• Not on the lawn during the thaw. That is the softest the ground gets all year.

One thing that is not about the container: a tear-off sheds an enormous quantity of nails. A magnet sweep of the driveway, lawn and street at the end of the job is twenty minutes well spent, and it is the single most common complaint homeowners have about roofing work.

Finally, the practical roofing window here runs roughly April to October — asphalt shingles need warmth to seal properly. That compresses a year of roofing into about seven months, and spring is doubly busy because it is when winter's ice dam damage gets discovered. Book early.