Can I get the state FORTIFIED grant in Covington?

Potentially, yes. The Louisiana Department of Insurance publishes the parishes that may enter the Fortify Homes lottery and St. Tammany is on the list of 25. But the grant is a lottery, not first come first served, and registration windows open and close. Check the current status at the department yourself before letting any contractor build a price around a grant that may not open before you need the work done.

If I fortify my roof now, can I claim a grant later?

No. The department states that the programme does not permit grant funds to be used by homeowners who choose to fortify their roof without first receiving a grant. Work done now would not be reimbursed if a registration window opened afterwards. If the grant matters to your decision, wait for a window rather than fortifying first.

Is there any financial benefit without waiting for the grant?

La. R.S. 22:1483 requires insurers who file rating plans with the commissioner to provide an actuarially justified adjustment for a structure built or retrofitted to the fortified standards, and that section names no parishes. Read its conditions before relying on it: the property has to be certified by an IBHS certified inspector, the certification has to be presented to the insurer before any adjustment takes effect, and the credit applies only to policies that provide wind coverage. How much, and how it applies to your own policy, is between you and your insurer.

Is it cheaper to do this during a replacement?

Considerably, because three of the four upgrades need the covering off to reach the deck. Done alongside a reroof they are additional lines on a job already happening. Done on their own they mean stripping a covering that was otherwise fine and buying a new one to put back, because shingles that come off do not go back on. That is a replacement with extra steps.

Can you certify my roof as FORTIFIED?

No, and neither can any other roofing contractor. The designation is issued by an independent FORTIFIED Evaluator, the certificate runs for five years, and renewing it means retaining an Evaluator to reinspect. What we can do is build to the standard and document it, and the Evaluator has to be engaged before the work starts.

Does a roof coating count as weatherproofing?

Not in the sense this page uses the word. A coating is a surface membrane on a sound roof and it does nothing about fastening, edges or the deck. It has real uses on low slope and metal roofs and it is a separate service with its own page. Anyone selling a coating as wind protection is selling the wrong product.

Do these upgrades need a permit in Covington?

Where they are done as part of a reroof they sit inside that permit, which is required and inspected under La. R.S. 37:3737(I). Which office issues it depends on whether the address sits inside the Covington city limits or in the unincorporated part of St. Tammany Parish.

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Roof Weatherproofing in Covington, LA

Big Easy Roofing weatherproofs roofs across Covington and St. Tammany Parish against wind and wind driven rain. The upgrades are the same ones the FORTIFIED Roof standard names. What is different at a Covington address, compared with much of the state, is that the grant can reach here, and understanding how it does is the part of this page worth reading first.

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Service

City

Sealed roof deckKeeps working after a covering blows off

City or parishPermits a reroof

Grant eligibleBy lottery, if open

5 year certificateRenewed by an Evaluator

Covington 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

City or parish, by boundary

Weatherproofing carried out as part of a reroof sits inside that permit, which is issued and inspected through either the City of Covington Building Permits Office inside the city limits or the St. Tammany Parish permits office outside them. A Covington postal address does not tell you which.

State grant at this address

Eligible, by lottery

The Louisiana Fortify Homes Program lists 25 eligible parishes and St. Tammany is one of them. Grants are awarded by lottery rather than in application order, and registration windows open and close. Read the current position at the department before letting anyone build a price around it.

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 and it carries three conditions set out below. 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 Covington question rather than a generic one is the money route. Unlike much of the state where the state grant does not reach, St. Tammany is on the eligible parish list, so a Covington homeowner has two possible ways to pay for the same upgrades: a state grant awarded by lottery, or a conditional insurance adjustment set out in statute. Both have real conditions and neither is automatic, which is why the sequence below is worth reading before starting the work.

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.

Upgrade	What it is for	When it is affordable	What it will not do
Sealed roof deck	Keeps water out once the covering is gone	During a reroof	Hold a covering down. It is the second line, not the first
Ring shank fastening	Keeps the deck attached in high wind	During a reroof	Help at all if the deck itself is soft or delaminated
Reinforced edge	Stops wind getting under the perimeter	During a reroof	Make up for a covering fixed to the wrong pattern
Impact resistant covering	Rated by the standard for impact up to two inches	At covering replacement	Reduce 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 how both reach a Covington address

Two separate things get confused constantly, and understanding both matters here because both can apply. One is a state grant limited to a published list of parishes, and St. Tammany is on it. The other is a statutory obligation on insurers that names no parishes at all.

The Louisiana Fortify Homes grant

St. Tammany is eligible

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. St. Tammany is on that list of 25. Read it yourself at the department before letting anyone price a job around it, because the answer changes when the list is refreshed.

How it is awarded, if you are eligible

By lottery

Not in application order. Registration windows open and close, and any given month may be open, closed or between rounds. Anyone describing it as first come first served has not read the programme, and anyone treating it as a certainty has not either.

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.

That matters more here than in a parish where the grant is unreachable, because at a Covington address the grant is a real option. If the money side of the decision is what is stopping you, wait for a registration window rather than doing the work first and expecting a payment behind it. Check the list and the window 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 weatherproofing on a Covington roof has to defend against

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

Rain in the quantity this area actually gets

NOAA Atlas 14 records a 100 year recurrence 60 minute rainfall rate of 4.81 inches an hour for the Covington coordinates, which sits above the older NOAA Engineering Weather Data figure of 4.0 inches an hour used at Baton Rouge Ryan Field. 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 still carries the ocean when it arrives

The Northshore is inland from Lake Pontchartrain but not far, and a tropical system reaching here has crossed water not land. 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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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.

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. If the grant is part of the plan, the registration window is settled at this stage.

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 Covington

The rest of the Big Easy Roofing services available in Covington, 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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