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Home/Service Areas/Louisiana/Baton Rouge/Roof Weatherproofing

Roof Weatherproofing in Baton Rouge, LA

Big Easy Roofing weatherproofs roofs across Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish against wind and wind driven rain. The upgrades are the same ones the FORTIFIED Roof standard names. What is different at a Baton Rouge address is who pays for them, and that is the part of this page worth reading first.

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Sealed roof deckThe upgrade that outlasts
East Baton RougePermits a reroof
No state grant hereParish not on the list
5 year certificateRenewed by an Evaluator

Baton Rouge roof weatherproofing at a glance

Weatherproofing is four named upgrades rather than a product: a sealed roof deck, ring shank fastening, reinforced edges, and an impact resistant covering where hail matters. Three of the four need the covering off, so the cheapest time to buy them is during a reroof you were already having.

The upgrade that keeps working

Sealed roof deck

The Louisiana Department of Insurance, setting out the FORTIFIED Roof standard, states that FORTIFIED roof decks must be sealed to prevent water damage that comes through exposed decking when a covering is blown away. It is a second line rather than a guarantee: it cuts what gets in while the roof is waiting to be repaired, and edges, penetrations and damaged areas remain their own question.

Who permits a reroof

East Baton Rouge Parish

Weatherproofing carried out as part of a reroof sits inside that permit, which is issued and inspected by Permits and Inspections, or by St. George, Baker, Zachary or Central if the address sits there.

State grant at this address

Not available

The Louisiana Fortify Homes Program lists 25 eligible parishes and East Baton Rouge is not among them. Neighbouring Ascension, Livingston and Iberville are, so the answer turns on the address rather than on the region.

Discount obligation

Conditional, by statute

La. R.S. 22:1483 requires insurers filing rating plans with the commissioner to provide an actuarially justified adjustment for a structure built or retrofitted to the fortified standards. It names no parishes. It carries three conditions set out below, and the size of any adjustment sits in the rating plan the insurer has filed, not in the statute.

Who issues the certificate

An independent Evaluator

Not the roofer. A FORTIFIED designation comes from a third party Evaluator, the certificate runs five years, and renewing it means retaining an Evaluator to reinspect. Any contractor promising you the designation on their own signature is promising something they do not issue.

Better attachment

Ring shank nails

The standard requires ring shank nails in place of common smooth nails. The Louisiana Department of Insurance describes the change as nearly doubling the strength of the roof against wind, and it adds little to a reroof that already has the deck open.

Weatherproofing gets sold as a mysterious extra and it is not. It is four specific pieces of work, all of them named in the FORTIFIED Roof standard, all of them things you can point at on a scope of work: seal the deck, fasten it with ring shank nails, build the edge properly with a wider drip edge and a fully adhered starter strip, and where hail is the worry, put an impact resistant covering on top. None of that is exotic and none of it depends on a brand.

What makes it a Baton Rouge question rather than a Louisiana one is the money. The state grant that pays for this work stops at a parish boundary that runs right past this city, so there is no grant to put toward it at an address here. That is a reason to be careful about who you buy it from, not a reason to skip it, because the statute that obliges insurers to reflect the work in a premium has no parish boundary in it, although it does carry conditions of its own.

The four upgrades and when each one is affordable

Each line is a specific item you can require on a scope of work and check afterwards. The column that decides the cost is the third one, because the upgrades that need the covering lifted are close to marginal during a reroof and become a separate job on their own.

UpgradeWhat it is forWhen it is affordableWhat it will not do
Sealed roof deckKeeps water out once the covering is goneDuring a reroofHold a covering down. It is the second line, not the first
Ring shank fasteningKeeps the deck attached in high windDuring a reroofHelp at all if the deck itself is soft or delaminated
Reinforced edgeStops wind getting under the perimeterDuring a reroofMake up for a covering fixed to the wrong pattern
Impact resistant coveringRated by the standard for impact up to two inchesAt covering replacementReduce wind uplift on its own

No prices are quoted on this page on purpose. Three of the four upgrades are priced as part of a reroof rather than as items of their own, and quoting them separately would give the same work two sets of figures across this site. Call (504) 800-8196 and we will price the roof in front of us.

The grant, the discount and which one reaches Baton Rouge

Two separate things get confused constantly, and the difference decides whether this work makes financial sense here. One is a state grant limited to a published list of parishes. The other is a statutory obligation on insurers that names no parishes at all.

The Louisiana Fortify Homes grant

Not this parish

The Louisiana Department of Insurance grants up to $10,000 towards a roof built to the FORTIFIED Roof standard, and publishes the parishes that may apply. East Baton Rouge is not on that list. Read it yourself at the department before letting anyone price a job around it.

How it is awarded, if you are eligible

By lottery

Not in application order. Registration windows open and close, and at the time of writing the department states that registration is closed and further rounds will be announced later. Anyone describing it as first come first served has not read the programme.

The discount law, and its three conditions

La. R.S. 22:1483

Insurers filing rating plans must provide an actuarially justified adjustment to an insured who builds or retrofits to the fortified standards. The section also requires certification by an IBHS certified inspector, requires that certification to be presented to the insurer before any adjustment takes effect, and applies the credit only to policies that provide wind coverage. Read it at the state legislature.

What we will not tell you

What you will be paid

How large any adjustment is, and how it applies to your own policy, is a matter between your insurer and the commissioner. Louisiana law restricts what a roofing contractor may tell a homeowner about their own cover, and we keep to that. We describe the work.

The timing trap, and it is the thing to know before you start

The department states plainly that the programme does not permit grant funds to be used by homeowners who choose to fortify their roof without first receiving a grant. Fortifying now cannot be reimbursed later.

For a Baton Rouge address that is currently academic, because the parish is not on the list. It stops being academic the moment the list changes, so if the timing matters to you, check the list at the department yourself rather than relying on a contractor to watch it for you.

What to require on the scope of work

Ask for them by name and in writing: the deck sealing method, the fastener type and pattern, the drip edge width and starter strip, and where hail is part of the goal, the covering rating. Three of the four are covered up on the day they go in, so they can only be verified from photographs and records taken while the roof is open, which is why a vague quote for weatherproofing on its own is worth very little.

If a FORTIFIED designation is the goal, the Evaluator has to be engaged before the work rather than found afterwards, because the evidence is photographed as the roof goes on. A finished roof that was built correctly but never documented cannot be certified after the fact. Who engages the Evaluator, what the evaluation costs and who pays for it are settled in writing before roofing starts, along with what happens if the Evaluator rejects a detail.

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What a Baton Rouge roof is being weatherproofed against

The wind gets the attention and the water does the damage. Three local conditions decide which of the four upgrades earns its place on a particular roof, and the first of them is why the sealed deck matters more here than the marketing suggests.

Rain in the quantity this city actually gets

The National Weather Service 1991 to 2020 normal for Baton Rouge Ryan Field is 61.94 inches of rain a year, and NOAA records a 100 year recurrence rainfall rate of 4.0 inches an hour for the same station. A roof here is a water management system before it is anything else.

That is why the sealed deck is the upgrade to argue for. A covering that lifts in a squall exposes bare wood to exactly that rain, and a sealed deck is what can keep the water out of the ceilings, the insulation and the floor while the roof itself is waiting to be repaired.

Wind that arrives inland with the rain still in it

Baton Rouge is not on the coast, so a tropical system that reaches it has crossed land first. What that does to the wind varies with the storm, and it does not reliably take anything off the rain. Wind goes for the same two places on a roof either way: the perimeter, and any course that was never properly bonded down.

Edge work and fastening are what answer that. A wider drip edge and a fully adhered starter strip take away the lip that wind gets under, and ring shank fastening holds the deck itself, which is the layer nobody thinks about until it has moved.

Heat and humidity, which decide whether adhesives hold

Self adhered underlayments and deck sealing tapes bond within a temperature and moisture range, and a roof deck that is hot, damp or dusty at the moment the material goes down will not give the bond the product was tested for.

That is a scheduling and workmanship question rather than a product one. It is also the part of a weatherproofing job that is invisible the day after it is finished, which is why it belongs in photographs taken while the deck is open.

Big Easy Roofing Process

Three steps, and the first one settles whether weatherproofing is a job of its own here or a set of lines added to a reroof you were going to need anyway.

A roofer examining an open roof deck before underlayment goes down
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01

Look at the deck, not just the covering

The condition of the decking decides what is worth doing. Ring shank fastening into soft or delaminated sheathing buys nothing, so the deck is assessed first and any replacement sheathing is priced as its own line rather than hidden in a rate.

02

Write the four upgrades into the scope by name

Deck sealing method, fastener type and pattern, drip edge and starter strip, and the covering rating, each written down so you can check it afterwards. If a FORTIFIED designation is wanted, the Evaluator is engaged at this point and not later.

03

Photograph it while it is open

The deck, the fastening and the edge detail photographed before the covering goes on, and the photographs are yours. Call (504) 800-8196 and we will come and look at what is up there now.

Everything else we do in Baton Rouge

The rest of the Big Easy Roofing services available in Baton Rouge, each with its own page and written estimate. Weatherproofing overlaps a replacement, so where a covering is due to come off anyway that page is the one to read alongside this.

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