Why Should You Choose a Synthetic Roof Underlayment?

The durability and water-repelling ability of your roof will depend heavily on your choice of material for its underlayment. The underlayment is a piece of material that is placed beneath the shingles on your roof that acts as a moisture barrier, preventing rain, snow, sleet, and other precipitation from being able to penetrate your roof and leak into your home. On this same note, it can also prevent any chemicals from the shingles themselves from leaking into your home as well. Your underlayment also provides a sound barrier between your shingles and your roof, allowing severe weather like heavy rains and hail to not sound deafening inside your home.

Modern synthetics are a noticeable improvement in quality over traditional felt, but some homeowners are a little skeptical about installing them on their roof. Let’s take a look at some advantages and disadvantages of each.

Traditional Felt

Advantages: Traditional felt underlayments have been around for decades, and have changed very little. Every roofer is going to be familiar with installing using this material, so you won’t struggle with finding someone who can do so properly. Many roofers also tout the superior ability felt has to absorb moisture and liquid that seeps through your shingles, which is unquestionably better than synthetic material. Felt is also considerably cheaper than a synthetic underlayment.

Disadvantages: A felt underlayment generally must be much thicker in order to provide the same sound-dampening and protective ability as a synthetic underlayment, which actually makes them more difficult to install properly. Their water-absorption ability means that they have the ability to place a much greater weight load on the structure of your roof when they get wet. This same water-holding tendency also makes felt underlayments much less durable, so you will likely need to replace it before you would a synthetic.

Synthetic Underlayments

Advantages: As opposed to a traditional felt underlayment, you have a pretty extensive list of choices when it comes to the type of material you choose for your synthetic underlayment, giving you even more flexibility to choose the right one for your home. Synthetic materials are all easy to install and will last far longer than a felt underlayment, which can help offset their additional cost by spreading it over the extended life of the roof. Likewise, because they are so lightweight, synthetic underlayments are great for bulkier shingles

Disadvantages: The single biggest disadvantage to synthetic underlayments is the cost. For those who are doing a roof installation on a tight budget, the cost of synthetic underlayment may be a little too much to deal with, even though their superior durability may make them actually more cost-effective over the life of the roof. Additionally, most roofers agree that synthetic materials repel a lot more water and moisture than felt does, which means they don’t handle water seepage quite as well if there are any cracks or gaps in your underlayment.

If you have further questions regarding which underlayment you should use for your roof replacement or installation, do not hesitate to speak to our team at Divine Roofing, Inc. We have proudly earned the title of GAF® Master-Elite™ Factory Certified contractor, meaning we have demonstrated a long and consistent record of completely-satisfied clients, use of quality materials, and labor held to the highest degrees of workmanship.