Del River Roofing

Roofing contractors around Greater Philadelphia

A lot of roofs here touch a neighbor's. That changes what a re-roof actually involves, and it is the part of an estimate most likely to go unmentioned.

The line that decides the rest

If the house shares a wall, start there. Party wall flashing is what separates a roof that stays dry from a roof that puts water into somebody else's ceiling, and it is fiddly, unglamorous work that is easy to leave out of a number. Ask straight out whether it is being replaced or reused. A quote that has thought about it will say so without being pushed.

After that the questions get ordinary. Flashing at the chimney. What a sheet of decking costs if the old boards turn out to be soft, and how many the crew has allowed for. Whether the underlayment runs through the valleys or only where somebody is going to look.

And the warranty, which people hear as one thing and is two. The manufacturer covers the material, and the material is rarely what goes wrong. Somebody has to cover the work, and that somebody is whoever will still be answering the phone.

An old roof rarely gives out in the field. It gives out at the joints and the edges. Six of them, numbered. Five are places where the roof meets something else.
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.

The work

Why roofs fail in this region

This is the oldest housing stock we cover, and age decides most of it. Century-old slate is reaching the end of its life across whole streets, interwar rows carry a low-slope porch roof that fails before the main field, attached houses share a flashing joint that moves every freeze-thaw cycle, and a mature canopy fills the valleys each autumn. Most of what gets reported here is predictable.

Cities