Same-day emergency response across Harrisburg· Licensed & insured · Free written estimates
1000 N Cameron St, Harrisburg, PA 17103
Emergency & Storm Services
Battened, fastened and sealed — a tarp that survives the next front instead of flapping off it.
Serving Harrisburg & Dauphin County · 1000 N Cameron St, Harrisburg, PA 17103
24/7 emergency response
A person answers, day or night.
Based on N Cameron St
Local crews, not storm chasers.
Licensed & insured
Liability and workers' comp on every job.
Free written estimates
Itemized line by line, photos included.
A tarp is not a repair. It is a dam, and how it is installed decides whether it holds for six weeks or blows off in the first gust.
The tarps that fail are the ones laid loose over a hole and weighted with whatever was in the yard. Wind gets under the leading edge and lifts the whole sheet, and now you have a hole plus a shredded tarp wrapped around your gutter. Worse, the water it did hold has been sitting on your deck the whole time.
We install emergency covers the way they are meant to be done: run high enough to get under the course above the damage, wrapped around furring strips at the edges, screwed into solid framing, and sealed at penetrations. Done right, a tarp buys you the weeks you need to schedule a proper repair and get an insurance claim moving.
Tarping is the right first move in any of these situations.
Felt and synthetic underlayment are water-resistant, not waterproof, and they are not rated to be a finished surface. One good rain and it is in your attic.
Any opening through the deck goes straight into insulation. Cover it before the next rain, even if the sky is clear right now.
A lifted rowhome membrane is a scoop. Wind gets under it and pulls more of the sheet loose with every gust.
After a county-wide event, every roofer has a queue. A properly installed tarp holds your house safe while you wait for a real repair slot.
You do not have to let your house take more water while an adjuster schedules a visit. Mitigate now, document it, and submit the cost with the claim.
Sometimes the right answer is a good cover for two weeks rather than a rushed partial install.
There is a right way, and it takes about an hour longer than the wrong way.
A heavy-duty poly tarp installed correctly will realistically protect a Harrisburg roof for somewhere in the range of a couple of months. Full sun degrades the fabric, and our freeze-thaw cycle works the fastener holes open.
That is a window, not a solution. Every week a tarp stays up, the underlayment beneath it stays damp, the deck edges wick moisture, and the fastener holes enlarge. We book the permanent repair while the tarp is going on, not after.
We wrote a longer explanation of tarp lifespan and what shortens it in emergency roof tarping: how long can a tarp protect your home?.
Nearly every homeowners policy requires you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage after a covered loss. Emergency tarping is exactly that, and the cost is generally reimbursable as part of the claim.
Two things make it go smoothly. Photograph the damage before the tarp goes on — an adjuster arriving two weeks later sees only blue poly. And keep the itemized invoice, which we write specifically so it maps onto a claim line rather than disappearing into a lump sum.
Our process
No surprises, no change orders you did not agree to, and photographs of anything we find before it gets covered.
We ask about roof type, pitch, the size of the damage and whether water is currently entering. That decides equipment and crew size.
Timestamped photos of the bare damage from multiple angles, plus attic and interior shots. This is your claim evidence.
Debris, broken shingle, torn membrane and anything that would puncture the tarp from underneath comes off first.
Tarp sized and run over the ridge where possible, edges wrapped on furring strips, screwed to framing, penetrations sealed.
We go back into the attic and living space to confirm the entry point is genuinely stopped, not just covered.
You leave with a written scope for the real repair and a date, plus the tarp invoice formatted for your insurer.
Why us for this job
Roofing is a trade with a reputation problem and a good share of it is earned. Here is what is different about how this job runs with us.
Ask any contractor for these before you sign
Edges wrapped around furring strips and screwed into rafters or solid decking, so the load spreads across the whole edge instead of concentrating at each fastener. That is what stops the material tearing free in the next gust.
The top edge goes under the shingle course above the damage so runoff lands on top of the tarp, never behind it. A tarp that ends mid-slope with an exposed top edge is a funnel pointed at your deck.
An adjuster arriving two weeks later sees blue poly and nothing else. The before-photographs are the evidence, and they are the reason our tarping invoices tend to get reimbursed without argument.
We take the tarp off, seal every fastener penetration we made, and credit the emergency visit toward the final invoice where the claim allows it.
Honest pricing
Tarping is priced by area covered, access difficulty and time of dispatch. It is deliberately a small number relative to the damage it prevents — a wet ceiling, wet insulation and mold remediation cost multiples of a tarp.
When we perform the permanent repair or replacement, the tarp removal is included and we credit the emergency visit toward the final invoice where the claim allows it.
A single blown-off section versus an entire slope are very different jobs in material and labor.
Steep Victorian slopes and third-story rowhome roofs need fall protection and more crew.
Overnight and severe-weather calls cost more than a scheduled next-morning cover.
Limbs, broken decking and shredded membrane have to come off before a tarp can seat properly.
We use heavy-duty reinforced poly, not hardware-store blue plastic. It costs a little more and it survives.
Where we do this work
Tarping is dispatched county-wide and we get to city addresses fastest — Uptown, Midtown, Allison Hill and Riverside, where mature canopy makes limb strikes routine. Beyond the city we cover Susquehanna Township, Lower Paxton Township, Colonial Park and the exposed higher ground at Skyline View and Linglestown, where wind takes shingles off before it takes limbs down.
FAQs
The questions Harrisburg homeowners actually ask us on this job.
Usually the same day, and overnight for active interior leaks. City addresses and the inner-ring townships are the fastest from our Cameron Street shop; after a county-wide storm we work in severity order.
A properly battened heavy-duty tarp realistically holds for a couple of months in Central PA weather. UV and freeze-thaw are what wear it out. Treat it as a bridge to the permanent repair, not a season-long solution.
Installed correctly it does not. We fasten through furring strips into framing with screws and washers and seal every penetration, then remove everything cleanly when the permanent repair happens.
Generally yes, as required mitigation after a covered loss. Photograph the damage before we cover it and keep the itemized invoice. Our storm damage restoration team handles the documentation side with you.
From the ground, no — and please do not go up. Wet or storm-damaged roofs are how people are seriously hurt, and decking around an impact is compromised in ways you cannot see from on top. What you can do from inside is far more useful: move what matters out of the room, kill the breaker if water is near a fixture, put a bucket under the drip, and punch one small relief hole at the low point of a bulging ceiling so it drains in a controlled stream instead of failing across the whole plane. Then photograph everything. We will handle the roof.
Keep reading
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Installed properly, a heavy-duty tarp will protect a Central PA roof for roughly a couple of months. Installed badly, it lasts until the next gust. Here is the difference.
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