I have an old house with a leaky roof that I’m going to fix by laying down a new layer of 3-tab comp shingles. The pitch is probably 8/12 (you can barely walk up it). Currently it has a very worn out comp roof that was nailed to the wood singles with no roofing felt in between. This is a funky rental property that I’m probably going to tear down in the next 2 years so I don’t need the new roof to last 20 years. I just need to stop the leaks. My question is; can I just leave the old roof the way it is and lay down a layer of #15 roofing felt then the new 3-tab comp shingles? I know there’s a concern about too much weight, but it is a pretty steep pitch, and most winters we only get 1″ – 2″ of snow at most. I really don’t want to mess with removing the old roofing. So I need some advice here. Do you think I’ll be ok re-roofing over the old roof? Thanks for your help!!
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I've certainly seen this done. Of course, I've seen a lot of idiotic things done, so can't say exactly where this sits on the idiocy scale.
Do use care on that roof. There's a danger that the wood shingles may suddenly become estranged from the sheathing should you put too much weight on them.
As long as the old layers are pretty solid, you should have no problem doing what you plan, although you don't really need the felt. I would strongly suggest using roof brackets and some 2x as staging. Use longer roofing nails, like 2" or 2 1/2" to catch the wood shingles.