Roofing Contractor in Riverside, Harrisburg, PA

Detached early-century homes with complex roofs

Riverside's housing is largely detached and from the first three decades of the twentieth century: Colonial Revival, Foursquare, Craftsman and some larger Victorian holdovers, with a scattering of mid-century infill.

Roofs here are more complex than the rowhome stock south of the neighborhood — hips, gables, dormers, porch roofs and sunroom additions, with correspondingly more flashing. Many are still slate on the main planes with asphalt on the additions, which creates its own detailing challenges at the transitions.

Front Street properties face the river directly with nothing in between. West elevations take wind and driven rain without obstruction, and it shows in how ridge caps, rake edges and dormer cheeks weather.

• Detached Colonial Revival, Foursquare and Craftsman homes
• Slate main roofs with asphalt additions and awkward transitions
• Porch and sunroom roofs, frequently low-slope and under-specified
• Direct river exposure on west-facing elevations

Mature trees and what they do to roofs

The oaks and maples along Riverside's streets and in its back yards are magnificent and they are the number one cause of roof damage in this neighborhood.

Three distinct problems. Limb strikes during storms, which are the dramatic version and the reason we get 2 a.m. calls from Front Street. Overhanging branches that abrade granules off the shingles every time the wind moves them, which produces a wear pattern we can identify immediately. And constant organic debris in valleys and gutters, which holds moisture against the roof and accelerates everything.

Our advice here is consistent: keep limbs trimmed back from the roof plane, clean gutters three times a year rather than two, and have valleys checked annually because that is where the debris collects. We wrote it up in full in mature trees and roof damage in Harrisburg's older neighborhoods.