Wellborn Roofing Nationwide | Barrett & Sons Construction

Wellborn Roofing: The Los Angeles Owner’s Guide

If you’re holding a failed Wellborn roofing component and trying to figure out whether it can be matched, the short answer is yes. We stock and install Wellborn-compatible roofing materials across Los Angeles, and a typical replacement runs $470 to $2,125 installed depending on what failed and how much roof has to come apart to get to it. Most owners discover the problem the same way: a water stain on the ceiling after a good Southern California rain, or a shingle that finally gave up and landed in the yard after a Santa Ana wind event.

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We’re an independent Los Angeles roofing contractor. We’re not affiliated with Wellborn, but we’ve been matching and installing their product lines for years, and we know which parts interchange and which ones don’t. If you’ve got a Wellborn roof that’s failing, this page will tell you exactly what you’re dealing with and what it costs to make it right.

Which Wellborn Models This Applies To

Wellborn roofing has changed hands and product lines a few times over the years, which means the answer to “can you still get this part” depends on which generation of roof you have. The older Wellborn asphalt shingle lines, which we see most often on Los Angeles homes built from the late 1990s through about 2015, use a standard three-tab and architectural shingle profile that several current manufacturers produce as a dimensional match. The newer Wellborn composite and tile-look products are more particular: the interlocking edges are proprietary, and you can’t mix a generic tile from a Los Angeles supply house into a Wellborn roof without visible stepping and eventual water intrusion at the seams.

Here’s what matters when you’re identifying your roof: look for the original paperwork first. The product name and color code are usually on the original estimate or the permit paperwork from when the roof went on. No paperwork? Look in the gutter. After a wind event, dislodged shingles often carry a printed code on the underside that identifies the line and the batch. If there’s nothing there, measure a full shingle. The standard Wellborn dimensional shingle runs 39 3/8 inches wide, which is a quarter inch narrower than the most common big-box replacement. That quarter inch sounds small, but it’s the difference between a course that lays flat and a course that ripples. We keep the OEM-size stock on hand for exactly this reason. Quality aftermarket equivalents exist for the older lines and we’ve installed plenty of them with good results, but we’ll tell you upfront when the aftermarket part is a compromise, because a roof that leaks in three years isn’t a bargain at any price.

Signs Your Wellborn Roofing Is Failing

• Ceiling stains after rain. A dark ring or a yellowing patch on the ceiling tells you water is getting through the roof deck. On a Wellborn roof in Los Angeles, this most often traces to a failed seal strip on a shingle that’s lifted, or a nail that backed out and left a pinhole for water to follow.
• Granules in the gutter. Asphalt shingles shed granules as they age, but if you’re seeing piles of them at every downspout after a cleaning, the shingle mat itself is breaking down. This is normal wear for a roof past about 18 to 20 years in Los Angeles sun, and it means you’re close to replacement on the affected slopes.
• Shingles that lifted or slid after wind. Santa Ana winds hit 50 to 70 mph in the foothill neighborhoods, and a Wellborn shingle with a dried-out seal strip will lift and never re-seal. Once the seal is gone, every subsequent wind event works the shingle a little more until it tears at the nail line.
• Cracked or curling shingle edges. The thermal cycling in Los Angeles, where a roof goes from 40 degrees overnight to 140 degrees surface temperature by afternoon, is brutal on asphalt. Cracked corners and curling edges are the shingle’s way of saying the asphalt has oxidized and lost flexibility.
• Water stains on the fascia or soffit. This usually points to a drip edge or underlayment failure at the eave line rather than a shingle problem. On Wellborn installations we’ve looked at, the underlayment at the eaves was often the first material to go because it’s the most exposed to sun and standing water after a clogged gutter.

Replacement Cost & What’s Included

For Wellborn-compatible roofing work in Los Angeles, here’s what you should expect to pay:

• Roof repair (localized): $470 to $1,475
• Tile roof repair (Wellborn tile-look or clay): $710 to $2,950
• Full roof replacement (Wellborn-compatible dimensional shingle): $9,440 to $23,600

What drives the range is how much of the roof has to come apart to fix the problem correctly. A single course of shingles at the field of the roof is a straightforward repair. A leak that started at a valley or a wall flashing means pulling shingles back two or three feet, inspecting and replacing the flashing, and re-laying the courses, which costs more because it takes longer and uses more material. Every job gets a written, line-item price before we start, so you know the parts cost, the labor cost, and the disposal cost separately. If we find more damage once the roof is open, you get a written change order before we touch it. That’s how we’ve worked since 1998, and it’s the reason people around Los Angeles recommend us to their neighbors. Every repair carries our 90-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not right, one call brings Tom Barrett back to make it right.

DIY or Call Us?

Some things on a roof are safe to look at yourself. You can walk the perimeter of your house after a wind event and count shingles in the yard. You can do a visual check from the ground or from a ladder with someone holding it. You can clean your gutters and note the granule load. What you shouldn’t do is get on the roof and start pulling courses apart. Roof work on any steep pitch is dangerous work, and the section where the leak shows up on your ceiling is rarely directly above where the water is getting in. Water travels along the deck and the underlayment, and finding the true entry point takes experience. If the repair involves a valley, a wall flashing, or any section of roof steeper than 6:12, call a professional. We’ll do it right the first time, or we’ll come back and make it right. Call (877) 610-1318 and we’ll schedule a look.

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