Cedar Shake Roof Conversions

Cedar shake roofs are part of how this region looks. They were the default for generations of Vancouver Island building, and a great many of them are still up there, thinned by decades of rain, split along the grain, curling at the butts and shedding pieces into the garden after every serious blow.

Knowing When a Shake Roof Is Done

Shakes wear from exposure rather than from a single failure. The tells are consistent: shakes that have gone thin and grey through their thickness, splitting that runs the full length, missing pieces along the exposed courses, and heavy moss growth on the north-facing slopes where the roof never fully dries.

Once enough shakes have thinned, the roof stops functioning as a layered system. Water gets past the courses onto the boards below, and it has usually been doing so for a while before anyone notices a stain inside.

What Comes Off With the Shakes

This is the part that distinguishes a conversion from an ordinary replacement. Shakes were nailed to skip-sheathing, spaced boards with deliberate gaps that let the cedar dry from underneath. That works well for shakes and not at all for asphalt shingles, which need continuous support and something to fasten into across the whole plane.

So the conversion involves new sheathing, and stripping the shakes is when the decking’s real condition becomes visible for the first time in decades. Soft boards around chimneys, rot along valleys and at roof-to-wall junctions, and old repairs done badly are all routine discoveries rather than unlucky ones.

The Ventilation Problem Nobody Mentions

An old shake roof breathes constantly through its own gaps, which quietly compensated for an attic that was never properly ventilated. Cover that same attic with a continuous modern system and the ventilation deficiency becomes visible immediately, as condensation on cold sheathing through the damp winter months.

Any competent conversion designs intake at the eaves and exhaust near the ridge as part of the work. Skipping it trades a worn-out roof for a rotting deck.

Heritage Homes Add Their Own Rules

The houses still wearing shakes in Fairfield, Rockland, James Bay and Oak Bay tend to be steep, tall and cut up with dormers, hips and valleys. Access takes planning, staging matters, and the flashing schedule on a complicated roofline is a much larger part of the work than the field area suggests.

Quoting Honestly

A conversion quote that ignores the decking is not a quote, it is an opening bid. Ours lists the system, the re-sheathing, the ventilation work and a stated allowance for decking repair, so the number you approve is close to the number you pay. Crews are licensed, insured and covered by WorkSafeBC.