Stone Coated Roof Jacks and Vents for Oakland Homes

On a flat lot you catch a roof at an angle from the sidewalk and miss half of it. Up in Montclair, along Skyline, and in the winding streets above Highway 13, the road behind a house often runs level with its ridge or higher. Neighbors look down on the whole field of shingles. Every bare galvanized pipe, every flue cap painted a shade off, every rubber collar gone gray and cracked sits in plain view against the new roof. An owner can pay for a good shingle and a careful install and still end up with a roof that reads as half done because three raw metal pipes stick up out of it like fence posts.

The hills also run on their own clock. Much of what was rebuilt after the 1991 fire has been standing for more than thirty years now, long enough for many of those first roofs to come up for replacement.

Then there is the weather, which pulls in two directions up there. Near the ridge, fog and the shade of oaks, pines and redwoods keep north facing slopes damp, and algae and moss take hold on anything that stays wet. In the fall the wind turns around, and hot, dry Diablo winds bring the fire weather everyone in the hills watches for. Our stone coated finish is rust, rot, algae and fire resistant. We hold to that exact wording on purpose: resistant is the word, and we don't stretch it into a fire rating or any promise past it. What it does mean is that a pipe jack or vent cap isn't counting on spray paint that blisters in the heat and peels in the damp.

Down the hill, Oakland holds some of the oldest housing in the East Bay. Victorians in West Oakland. Craftsman bungalows through Rockridge and Temescal. Period revival houses from the 1920s era in Crocker Highlands and Trestle Glen. A house that has stood that long has usually been replumbed, had its heating replaced and picked up a bathroom or two, and the roof collects a penetration with every change. Two or three plumbing vents, an old heater flue, a newer water heater vent and a bath fan on a single roof is nothing unusual.

Many of those older roofs are steep, too, and a steep roof needs a flashing made for the pitch. Steep flashings are on our list for exactly that reason, along with specialty flashings for odd angles and roof to wall flashing for the places where an addition meets the original house.

Walk an Oakland reroof from the eaves up and here is where our products land. Plumbing vents take a stone coated pipe flashing or the Rapid Sleeve, our 10 inch metal sleeve with an elongated drip cap and a lower flare that seals the plumber vent, slid on and done. The heater flue and water heater vent get a stone coated heat pipe or vent cap from the stone coated vents line, which also covers dormer vents, elbow vents, O'Hagin low profile vents and double wall vent pipe. Valleys, roof to wall transitions, the saddle behind a chimney and skylight flashing come from the stone coated flashings side, and our Defender Series™ pieces handle custom work like crickets and saddles.

Each of those is coated in the color of the roof. We match any color, and custom color blending is available, so a Charcoal Black roof in Rockridge and a Chestnut roof in the Dimond each get parts that sink into the field. On the plumbing side there's one more benefit: standard plumbing flashings and assemblies can leak at the seam on the cone, and on ours that seam is sealed with an adhesive that bonds with the metal. The whole line is formulated to withstand hail, freeze, thaw and extreme heat, and it is backed by a 25 year product warranty.

We are a manufacturer based in Fremont, and your roofer is the one who installs our parts. If you own an Oakland home and you're lining up a new roof, ask the contractor to use California Stone Coating flashings and vents and to match them to your shingle, then get pricing from that contractor. You're welcome to call us with questions about parts or colors. The homeowners page has more for you.

Roofers can order at (510) 284-2554 or through their roofing distributor. The parts are universal for standard installations and need no special tools, which counts for something on a steep hillside roof where nobody wants extra trips up and down the ladder. If you also work farther south, we have pages for San Leandro and Hayward, and the full list is on our service areas page. The reasons behind all of it are laid out on why stone coat.