What Is Roof Underlayment?
A thin membrane or sheet that is fixed or applied to the plywood of your house roof is known as underlayment. Worried about those leaking drops from your ceiling every rainy season? It is not that your roofing material is defective; your roof just needs a good underlayment to provide an extra layer of seal to prevent water from leaking out of the top.
The most straightforward type of underlayment is generally made of felt paper with asphalt coated on both sides. Placing these tarps of asphalt-coated felt paper before fixing the shingles of the roof help prevent not only water from dripping down and adds an effective layer of protection against dust and other contaminants.
How Will Underlayment Help Strengthen My Roof?
People typically ignore the importance of placing high-quality underlayment before fixing the shingles on the roof. You might not want to lose the investment you made in roofing your house too soon, so adding just a fraction of the roofing amount to fix a high-quality underlayment for your roof is profitable in the long term.
Particularly in Arizona, the weather remains scorching for most of the year. This means that if you have an unventilated attic having no outlets, you might be in for a great deal of damage to your roof. Unventilated heat, both from the indoors of your home and from the scorching sun on the outdoors in Arizona can cook your shingles. Extreme unventilated heat for shingles is a major no-no as it can make them very brittle over time. For any roof, shingles are the first line of defense against water and dust damage on the ceiling of your house.
However, shingles are placed on the top in an overlapping pattern, which means that they are not perfectly sealed at their corners. These little gaps between the shingles help humid air, and wind-driven rain get into the attic. Brittle shingles on the roof prove a hazard to the roofing material, and break from the overlapping shingles and falling can hurt somebody.
Moreover, broken shingles also mean more ingress points for water and dust to invade the attic. Even humid air from the surroundings proves harmful not only to the paint job on your home walls but also provides an ideal moisturized environment for different molds to flourish. Having moldy indoors is no one’s desire; molds are not only smelly, but they also present a potential health hazard.
The answer to the big question of the shingle problem lies in one thing: good underlayment for the roof. Underlayment, when placed beneath the shingles, effectively seal the gaps left due to overlapping shingles. Filling these gaps by placing an underlayment underneath prevents the moisture and rain water from leaking into the roof, helping avoid moisture-related damage to the paint and roofing material. This helps prolong the life span of your roof and enables you to save money by avoiding frequent repairs.
What Are The Major Types Of Underlayment For My Tile Roof?
There are three main types of underlayment for roofs.
1. Felt Paper
As explained above, felt paper is just a sheet of heavy paper coated on both sides by asphalt. It is placed underneath the shingles as a huge thin tarp, which prevents the moisture from leaking through the shingles into the roof.
Asphalt-coated felt paper underlayment is available in two thicknesses, one is 15-pound, and the other is 30-pound. The 30-pound type is more suitable for long-term use as it protects from heat or moisture-related damage better than the 15-pound type. However, it is also more expensive. Felt paper underlayment is water-resistant but not water-proof.
2. Rubberized Asphalt
As evident from its name, this material has rubbery integrity, which means that it seals the roof against moisture and dust much better than a traditional felt paper underlayment. This underlayment also has adhesive on one side, which makes the installation very easy.
Rubberized asphalt underlayment often has polyethene coated on its upper side, which provides better water resistance than a felt paper. This type of underlayment also has greater longevity than felt paper and better reliability in hot climates. It is widely used as underlayment in Arizona.
3. Synthetic Underlayment
Synthetic underlayment is manufactured by woven polyethene or polypropylene. The entire underlayment is made from these materials, which means that this type of underlayment provides best-in-class water resistance and weather protection to the roof and the attic.
Synthetic underlayment also has more reliability as compared to felt paper or rubberized asphalt underlayment. The longevity and dependability of this type have made many roofing experts in Arizona suggest synthetic options to their customers as underlayment.