Roofing in the Downtown Historic District, Weatherford
Roofing a Downtown Historic District house is mostly dormers, valleys and flashing, so that is where our roofers start.
Old roofs near the square keep their problems in the details, where a curbside look never reaches.
What an old roof near the square actually needs
If your house is one of the old ones downtown, somebody's probably already told you it's a complicated roof. They weren't wrong.
The trouble on a house like this isn't in the middle of a slope. It collects where two planes meet, at a dormer cheek, at the base of a turret, behind a chimney that's been up there longer than the shingles have. That's where our roofers start.
It's also why the number matters here. A figure called from the curb hasn't priced the flashing that's most of the work. You'll get an itemized sheet instead, each dormer and valley on its own line, with dated pictures of your slopes.
There's a lot of this housing in a small space: about 31 acres bounded by Waco, Water, Walnut and Lee, where the City counts more than 60 Queen Anne and Victorian homes. The courthouse in the middle has carried two mansards and a three story tower since 1886.
The work these blocks ask of a roof
Storm damage and worn out roofs both turn up here, and so does the slower problem of a detail that's been wrong since somebody installed it twenty years ago. Describe what you're seeing even if it doesn't match anything on the list.
Roof Replacement
Everything stripped back to the sheathing and built up again, for the roof where one more patch only buys a season.
Roof Repair
One fault traced back to where water is getting in, which is rarely directly above the stain on the ceiling.
Storm and Hail Damage
Hail and wind damage documented plane by plane against a dated county record, so what hit the roof carries a date.
Roof Inspections
A written read on what the roof has left. Useful before a sale, after a hail day, or when the shingles are simply the wrong age.
Asphalt Shingle Roofing
The covering on most houses out here, specified by grade and installed with the underlayment and flashing that make it work.
Metal Roofing
Standing seam on concealed fasteners. It costs a good deal more than asphalt and it lasts a good deal longer.
Gutters
Runs sized to the roof and to the wettest month of the year, hung on fascia that got looked at first.
Flat Roof Repair
Low-slope work at the seams, the edges, and everywhere a pipe or a curb comes through, which is where a flat roof gives out.
Commercial Roofing
Low-slope systems over a working building, scoped around the fact that the business underneath has to stay open.
What changes when the house is a hundred years old
An older roof asks for more time and more care, and most of what goes wrong on one comes from treating it like a newer one. Your roofer prices it off what's really up there.
The details get priced, not estimated
Dormers, valleys and chimney flashing are counted and written down as their own lines, because on this kind of roof they are most of the labor.
The decking gets looked at
Boards under a roof this old can be worth keeping or worth replacing, and which one it is only shows once the old covering is off.
Matching gets settled up front
What a replacement will look like from the sidewalk is a conversation the roofer has before the work starts, while it is still a conversation.
Questions from the historic district
The ones that come up on these blocks in particular. If a question's bigger than a paragraph, the longer answer lives on the page it belongs to.
Book a look at the old roof
A street name is enough to start. Our roofer goes up and walks the whole roof, and what comes back is an itemized sheet with the findings on it.