Roofing contractors in Richmond, Virginia
A large share of Richmond’s older housing does not have a shingle roof at all. Behind those parapets are low-slope roofs, and that is a different trade.
What Richmond roofs are dealing with
The Fan, Jackson Ward, Church Hill and much of the older core are rowhouses and attached houses built between roughly 1890 and 1930, and their roofs are flat or nearly flat, hidden behind a parapet wall at the street. Those are membrane roofs, modified bitumen, TPO, EPDM, not asphalt shingles, and a company that installs shingles beautifully may not touch them.
The neighborhoods further out are conventional pitched housing: Northside and Ginter Park from the 1910s and 1920s, Westover Hills and Forest Hill across the river from the 1920s to 1940s, and the later subdivisions toward Henrico. Knowing which of the two roofs you own is the first question here, because it decides who is even able to quote it.
The Fan, the Museum District and Church Hill are attached and semi-attached housing on low-slope roofs, often with a shared party wall and a neighbor’s roof six inches away. Ginter Park and Bellevue in Northside are detached, generously sized and pitched, many with slate still on them. Forest Hill and Westover Hills across the James are 1920s to 1940s bungalows and colonials. Three different roofing problems inside one city, and the boundaries between them are a few blocks wide.
If you are not sure how much life is left in what is up there, the roof age check walks through the envelope one part at a time.
Covering The Fan, Church Hill, Northside, Museum District, Forest Hill and the rest of Richmond.
- 1 Ridge caps. Thin, fully exposed, and the first course to lift.
- 2 The field. Granule loss is the honest measure of how much life is left.
- 3 Valleys. One channel taking the runoff of two slopes, all year round.
- 4 Flashing. At the chimney, and where the garage roof meets the wall of the house.
- 5 The vent boot. Small, rubber, and on a much shorter clock than everything around it.
- 6 Eaves. Where water that has backed up at the edge gets under the courses.
When the work happens in Richmond
Freeze-thaw is the cycle that matters here, and it is hard on a flat roof in a way it is not on a pitched one. Water that ponds behind a parapet freezes, expands and works at every seam, so the leaks reported in February usually started as standing water the previous autumn. On the pitched housing further out the calendar is the ordinary one: shingles need warmth to seal, so replacement runs April through October and the schedules fill from March.
What moves the price in Richmond
On a low-slope roof the price is set by the drainage and the details, not by the area: the scuppers, the parapet coping, the flashing where the membrane turns up the wall, and whether the deck has to be re-pitched or an insulation taper added to move water off it. Two quotes on the same rowhouse can differ by a factor of two because one is re-covering and the other is correcting the slope. On the slate housing in Northside the question is different again: repair the slate or convert to shingles, and those are not close in either price or lifespan.
The price moves on four things, and the brand of shingle is not one of them. If two or three quotes are already in front of you, the comparison checklist lines them up:
- Is the step flashing along the walls being replaced, or cleaned up and sealed back down?
- What does a sheet of decking cost, and how many sheets does the price assume?
- Where does the ice-and-water shield stop?
- Who covers the labor if something fails, and for how long?
The work
Before you call anyone in Richmond
Four questions come up on nearly every roof across Maryland and Virginia, and the answer in Bowie is the answer in Fredericksburg. They are written out once, in the guides:
Why roofs fail here
Four failures do most of the damage across Maryland and Virginia, and there is a page on each. The stain on the ceiling is almost never under the hole.