What is Roof Pitch – Roof Repair DIY?

The Yancey Family, Serving Sacramento Since 1888

For Sacramento Roof Replacement and Roof Repair, It’s handy to Understand Some Roofing Terminology.

Roof Pitch is not some fancy baseball pitch like a slider, curve ball or fast ball. It is a number typically described by a simple fraction. One of the questions our Sacramento roofing contractors commonly ask is “Is your roof walkable”? Stately simply, would a reasonable, average person be able to walk up on your roof without significant risk of falling.

Obviously, A Flat roof is the most walkable. As long as you don’t get dangerously close to the edge, it’s walkable by anyone.

There are some styles of residential homes that have flat roofs. Flat roofs are not only simple to walk on but easy to work on without significant danger. But, they don’t shed water so a completely different style of roofing materials comes into play.

All shingled roofs and roofs with tile or metal roofing will have some slope to it. Some “pitch”  to the roof will allow for swift run off of rain water to eliminate any standing water on your roof. But the steeper it gets the bigger the fraction used to indicate pitch and the less walkable it becomes.

How Pitch is Measured

Let me introduce two terms used to define the pitch. We have Run and Rise. Think about the letter “L”. The vertical portion of the letter indicates the the Rise…basically the change in elevation. The horizontal portion of the letter is indicated by the term run. The horizontal distance traveled from the back of the L to the front edge of the bottom. Imagine if you drew a straight line from the top of the “L” to the front right edge. That would be a very steep line wouldn’t it? I don’t know about you but, I’d call that Not Walkable!

So in order to standardize the terms into a common formula used in this industry, We Use “Run/Rise” as the ration. So a typical ratio would look like this “4/12”  or “4 in 12”. Roofers pretty much have standardized the run to be 12 inches in the formula. In the example of 4/12 it will mean that the roof drops off 4 inches for every 12 inches of length. That’s still walkable.

I think by now you can see that the steeper a roof gets, the less walkable it becomes. After all, a 12/12 roof is basically a vertical cliff! 8-9/12 pitch is pretty steep and only professionals with the proper training, safety restraints, experience and insurance should be up there.

Hire a Professional Roofing Company in Sacramento

Sacramento roof replacement and roofing repair is not a common DIY project for the average home owner.

Yancey Home Improvements has the professional on staff to come out and assess repairs needed on your roof, produce a detailed, no nonsense, no obligation quote for you and perform the work in it’s entirety.

No need to risk injury when there are professionals trained and at the ready to perform the work for you. Contact Yancey Home Improvements today.