Del River Roofing

Roofing across Greater Philadelphia

A free connecting service linking homeowners with local roofing providers on both sides of the river. What follows is where these roofs give out first, and how to read two quotes written on the same house.

An old roof rarely gives out in the field. It gives out at the joints and the edges. Six places a roof gives way. The one everyone checks is No. 2, the shingle field. The other five do most of the failing.
Garage Point 1: ridge caps 1 Ridge caps: thin, exposed, first to lift Point 2: the field of the roof 2 The field: slate or shingle, aging Point 3: valleys 3 Valleys: litter holding the water Point 4: flashing 4 Flashing: masonry, party wall Point 5: vent boot 5 Vent boot Point 6: eaves and ice dams 6 Eaves: where the porch roof meets the wall
  1. 1 Ridge caps. Thin, fully exposed, and usually the first course to let go.
  2. 2 The field. Slate on the older rows, shingle on the rest, each on its own clock.
  3. 3 Valleys. Two slopes emptying through one line, with litter holding the water there.
  4. 4 Flashing. Old masonry, and the party wall a rowhouse shares with the house next door.
  5. 5 The vent boot. A small rubber part with a far shorter life than the roof it sits in.
  6. 6 Eaves. Where the porch roof ties into the wall, and where backed-up water gets in.

Where two houses share one joint

On a rowhouse the flashing at the party wall belongs to nobody in particular, which is exactly why it is the detail most often skipped. Add slate at the end of its life and a porch roof laid too shallow for what went on it, and the picture is close to complete.

The work

Eleven towns, two river banks

Eleven towns across Greater Philadelphia, from eighteenth-century stone in Bucks County to interwar rows in Delaware County and the South Jersey suburbs across the river, all of them working through the oldest housing stock we cover.