Drip edge is a roof flashing that is installed at the leading edge of your shingle near the gutter  It generally is a 1”x 3” or 1”x 2” piece of metal flashing slipped under the roofing material and over the top of the paper felting underneath the roofing shingles that hangs down into the gutter approximately 1”

The primary objective of this drip edge is to keep the rain water from soaking up under the roofing shingles and causing dry rot of the plywood under the felt paper. It also diverts water into the gutter instead of going behind the gutter, which could also dryrot of  the wood behind the gutter. This can cause the gutter to come loose and even make it pull away from the fascia board or rafter tails.

The one thing we see all to often is a house that has been re-roofed in the last few years but the roofer did not bother to provide drip edge flashing to eliminate the above problems from happening. We cannot understand how they get away with this as it is one of the most important things you can do when replacing the roof. Even if you had a huge job flashing would not amount to more than a couple of hundred dollars. Homeowners who are highly price concious force these roofers to cut corners in their bidding process and eliminate this important part of their install to reduce the overall bid amount.

The damage that can occur if drip edge is not installed can be very costly, yet they still do it. Some roofers will try to compensate for no flashing by hanging the edge of the roofing farther into the gutter so that the water will fall straight down. This works ok for a year or so, then the roofing begins to curl downward due to gravity. In the meantime trying to clean your gutters becomes very difficult as hanging the roofing farther into the gutters makes it difficult to get your hand in the gutter without cutting up your fingers and knuckles in the process while trying to get all the debris out.

We always tell our customers that are replacing self flashed gutters, that they will need to have new drip edge installed if they do not have existing flashing. Also any roof that does not currently have drip edge will need to have it installed as well. In fact in some applications it is so important that we have actually walked away from bids where they would not agree to have it installed as it presented a potential liability issue down the road for us.

We wish that building codes would require a building permit for re-roofs, that way it would be inspected and the contractor would be required to include this in the installation if they tried to cut corners. Unfortunately there is so much volume in that industry that having  permits for this purpose is not possible. So they look the other way.

It is in your best interest if you take this simple step to protect your home. It is very inexpensive and the alternative is expensive repairs down the road.