Replacing any door, whether garage or entry, that faces the street, will boost your home’s curb appeal while also increasing the value and salability of your property. Even if you’re not planning on selling your house any time soon, giving your home’s exterior a practical face lift will help increase the enjoyment of your home for the whole family. The benefits of new exterior doors include:
Better aesthetics: New, good-looking doors make a great impression on guests, neighbors and potential buyers, if you list your home.
Improved energy efficiency: Replacing old doors that have settled and no longer fit well with new, insulated doors lowers heat transfer out of the house in winter and into the house in summer. When the doors are being replaced, the installer should also check for and replace any loose caulk around window and door frames.
A safer home and family: Home security relies on strong, secure doors as a first defense. A reliable garage door keeps potential thieves out. It can also prevent one of the thousands of injuries to children, adults and pets caused every year by old, faulty garage doors falling unexpectedly or failing to reverse motion if an object is in the way.
When the time comes, replacing your roof is a big, important, investment. Since a new roof can cost $10,000 or more, paying cash is not an option for most homeowners. Financing, by taking out a home equity line of credit or a home improvement loan, is how most homeowners pay for the roof they need.
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A line of credit or a loan allows a homeowner to pay in installments spread out over time, which is easier to handle than an upfront cash payment in full. This guide will help you sort out the different types of home renovation loans so you can find the one that best meets your needs.
The first step is to contact at least three licensed contractors to discuss your roofing options and to get estimates on the cost of a new roof. Knowing how much your new roof will cost will help determine which type of financing works best for you.
Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs)
HELOCs are revolving credit lines that typically come with variable interest rates. Your monthly payment amount will depend on the current interest rates and your loan balance.
HELOCs are very similar to credit cards, except the rates are generally significantly lower because your home serves as a collateral, whereas credit cards are considered a form of unsecured debt (with some of the debt often becoming uncollectable for Credit Card companies, hence requiring high interest rates) with much higher interest rates.
Once, you are approved for a certain HELOC amount, you can then draw any amount, at any time, up to your credit limit. You can pay the loan down or off at will.
HELOCs have two phases. During the draw period, you use the line of credit as needed, and your minimum payment may cover only the interest due for that month.
However, eventually, usually after ten years, the HELOCs draw period ends and your loan enters the repayment phase. At this point, you can no longer draw funds and the loan becomes fully amortized for the remaining years.
HELOCs offer low closing costs and are very convenient. They offer low monthly payments during the draw period. The downside of these loans is that they use variable interest rates, meaning the interest rate can rise in tandem with the Federal Reserve’s prime rate.
Also, your monthly payments can significantly increase once the repayment phase begins and you begin paying both the interest and the principle on the loan.
Homeowner’s Insurance Coverage
You might be able to use your homeowner’s insurance policy to cover the cost of a new roof. Many homeowners’ insurance policies also include roof replacement insurance, and hence will cover roof replacement if the roof was severely damaged by fire, wind, or hail. However, if your roof degraded due to age and general wear-and-tear and/or due to a lack of maintenance (no roof cleaning, allowing moss outgrowth, not dealing with issues like loose shingles in time, etc.), the insurance company won’t cover the replacement. One thing to consider is that making a claim on your insurance will, most likely, raise your premium in the future.
Owens Corning and Tamko are two asphalt shingle manufacturers sharing the adage, “we’re second-best, so we try harder.” CertainTeed is the consensus leader for overall asphalt shingle quality.
The bottom line, which all the details in this guide lead to, is that the Owens Corning vs. Tamko comparison is about as even as it gets in the roofing products industry, with Owens Corning getting only a slight edge in the main architectural shingles category.
Owens Corning’s flagship Duration shingles outshine Tamko Heritage shingles in wind performance — thanks to the Owens Corning standard 130 MPH wind resistance design and warranty (even with the standard 4-nail installation method) compared to the standard 110 MPH wind performance warranty for Tamko Heritage shingles (with the standard 4-nail application method). However, this 20 MPH gap in the shingle wind-resistance performance can be overcome with a 6-nail enhanced installation method for Tamko Heritage shingles.
Owens Corning Roofing Shingles Display
Both brands get ratings in the “good” to “very good” range from roofing contractors who install them every day and from home inspectors who have seen their share of durable shingles and shingles that have failed before they should.
What it comes down to is the quality of the installation. You’ve got two above-average shingle brands that can deliver superior durability for 20+ years, fail in just a few years or perform somewhere in the middle.
What makes the difference is how well the installers do their job.
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More on the installation below. Along the way, we’ll address where each brand has bragging rights. While OC and Tamko are close to equal in total score, each brand has strong and weak points.
OC vs. Tamko: Quality and Reliability
Quality is a product of the materials used and the production process. Here’s an overview of Owens Corning and Tamko shingle construction.
Owens Corning: OC makes three tiers of shingles in the basic Supreme (3-tab shingle) and Oakridge (entry-level architectural shingle), better Duration (OC’s best-selling architectural shingle with a standard 130 MPH wind uplift rating and warranty), and best or premium category shingles in (Devonshire, Woodmoor, Woodcrest, and Berkshire) categories.
Tamko: This brand makes a very similar lineup with basic (Elite Glass-Seal), better (Heritage, Heritage Woodgate) and best (Heritage Premium, Heritage Vintage).
All shingles from Owens Corning and Tamko feature fiberglass mat bases saturated with asphalt and dressed in coated granules to resist the sun’s UV radiation. Each shingle is constructed with fused layers.
When installed, less than half of each shingle is exposed. The result is that 3-tab roofs (OC Supreme and Tamko Elite Glass-Seal 3-tab) have 2-3 layers of coverage at any given point on your roof.
All other shingles from both brands are architectural style shingles with 4-5 layers of coverage. The result are shingles with wind ratings of 60mph for 3-tab products and 110/130mph for all others.
The two brands have the same ratings in most ASTM materials and fire rating tests. Both are on par with CertainTeed and GAF.
Bad shingles are often the result of production rather than the materials used. The production processes for these brands are similar. The processes are slightly tweaked, even from run to run (runs of shingle batches).
When errors occur, a bad batch of shingles, such as layers that don’t properly fuse, are produced. What makes a brand worth considering is the consistency of the quality from run to run. Owens Corning and Tamko deliver good consistency.
Slight Advantage for Owens Corning: We’re not afraid to take; our general view is that both brands are as equal as you will find in terms of the overall quality and reliability. However, we give a slight edge to Owens Corning in the most important flagship architectural shingles category where OC Duration shingles outshines Tamko Heritage in wind performance.
OC TruDefinition Duration shingles come with a standard 130 MPH warranty thanks to the OC SureNail, triple-reinforced nailing fabric and widened nailing zone(for faster and more precise installation).
OC SureNail Technology: Triple Layer Protection and widened nail strike zone for faster installation
Tamko Heritage shingles come with a standard 110 MPH wind uplift warranty for regular applications. A more costly enhanced installation method would be required for Tamko Heritage shingles to attain the 130 MPH wind uplift warranty.
Owens Corning vs. Tamko: Cost
Since these brands compete aggressively head-to-head, their prices are comparable across all products (and are very competitive with GAF, too).
Here is a breakdown of the shingle series and their costs from both brands:
Prices are per square, which is 100 square feet of coverage (and 3 or 4 bundles of shingles, so check product specs for the bundles-per-square).
3-tab shingles:
OC Supreme: $75-$85
Tamko Elite Glass-Seal: $72-$77
Flagship (most popular and best-selling) architectural/dimensional shingles:
OC Duration: $90-$120
Tamko Heritage: $84-$100
Other popular architectural/dimensional shingles including specialty sub-lines:
Advantage – Tamko: As you can see, Tamko offers a slightly better value in terms of costs in each tier of products. It always makes sense to get written estimates on the specific roofing materials you’re considering so you can get a direct comparison of costs and product attributes including features and benefits.
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