The local rules on a Chino roof

The statewide layer

State-level requirements sit underneath everything above. They are included because more than one of them is commonly misstated, and because a homeowner who knows them can tell a careful quote from a careless one.

Licensing, deposits and what has to be on the paperwork

Roofing is the C-39 classification with the Contractors State License Board. The minor-work exemption that lets very small jobs be done unlicensed rose to $1,000 at the start of 2025, but it does not apply to work that requires a permit — and a re-roof requires a permit. The practical rule is therefore simpler than the statute: a re-roof needs a licensed contractor, whatever it costs.

The deposit is capped by statute. A home improvement contractor may not take a down payment of more than $1,000 or ten per cent of the contract, whichever is less, unless they have a blanket performance and payment bond on file with the board. Exceeding it is a misdemeanour, and in a declared disaster area the court is required to impose the maximum fine — which tells you how commonly it is attempted after a storm.

Every licensed contractor is required to put the licence number in all advertising, and in contracts, subcontracts and bids. An advertisement without one is itself a signal. The board's own register will confirm a number in under a minute, and it is worth the minute.

How many layers can stay on

A new covering cannot go over the old one where two applications are already up there, where what is there is water-soaked or degraded past being a sound base, or where the existing covering is slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile. Any of those means a strip to the deck.

Two layers is therefore the practical ceiling, and on an older house nobody knows how many are up there until somebody looks. That is the single most common reason a re-roof price changes after the work starts, and it is a fair reason to ask for the quote to state what happens if a third layer appears.

Fire classification: what is actually required, and where

The statewide floor is a Class C fire-retardant roof covering. That applies to a new roof, to any repair or replacement, and to any existing building where more than half the roof area is replaced within a year — which is every ordinary re-roof.

The highest classification, Class A, is pulled in by fire hazard severity zoning or wildland-urban interface designation, and by local ordinances that reach further. Over most of south Orange County the answer ends up being Class A — but it gets there through the zoning and the city, not through a blanket state rule, so it is a question to settle for your address.

As of 1 January 2026 the wildfire rules live in their own book: the California Wildland-Urban Interface Code, Title 24 Part 7, which consolidated what used to be Chapter 7A of the building code and section R337 of the residential code. A contractor still citing Chapter 7A is citing something that has been superseded.

The code your roof will be built to

California re-roofs are built to Title 24, the California Building Standards Code. The 2025 edition took effect on 1 January 2026 and applies to any project whose permit application was made on or after that date. If your last roof went on before then, it was built to a different edition, and some of what was acceptable on it is not acceptable now.

That matters practically rather than academically: a contractor quoting from habit rather than from the current code will occasionally quote a detail that will not pass inspection, and the inspection is at the end of the job rather than the beginning.

What a wildfire-zone roof actually has to include

Inside a mapped fire hazard zone the requirements go well beyond what the roof is covered with, and the extra details are exactly where a cheap job differs from a compliant one. It is embers rather than a flame front that destroy most houses in a wildfire, and every requirement below closes a gap an ember could use.

• A roof assembly meeting Class A when tested to ASTM E108 or UL 790
• On profiled tile, bird stops at the eaves and hip and ridge caps mudded in, so there is no open end for embers to enter
• Valley flashing of at least 0.019 inch (26 gauge) corrosion-resistant metal, over a mineral-surfaced cap sheet at least 36 inches wide
• Noncombustible gutters and downspouts, with an approved means of stopping leaves and debris collecting in them
• Vent screening of noncombustible corrosion-resistant mesh, no finer than 1/16 inch and no coarser than 1/8 inch