Roofing Contractors in Cambridge, MA

Slate and copper above Brattle Street

Under 780 CMR, slate can never be roofed over. It has to come off. But most calls up here are not tear-offs: worn valley metal, counterflashing someone patched with roof cement, or two dozen slates that slipped once the nails rusted out. The stone is often fine, and slate roof repair costs a fraction of a full job.

Boston runs about 92 days a year at or below freezing but only 23 that never climb above it. That 69-day gap works solder joints loose and lifts counterflashing out of the mortar. Most of what we do on these houses is metal: dormer cheeks, box gutters, bay roofs and chimney flashing repair.

Historic review comes before the material order

Cambridge reviews exterior work through its own Cambridge Historical Commission. The Old Cambridge Historic District and the conservation districts covering Avon Hill, Half Crown-Marsh and Mid-Cambridge all look at a roof visible from the street. That is a Cambridge process, not a Boston one. We do not order material until the approval is in hand.

Flat decks from Cambridgeport to East Cambridge

Water sits on the low corner, works into a lap seam and shows up on a top-floor ceiling two rooms away. Underneath is board sheathing with gaps between the planks, never plywood, usually under one overlay too many. We strip to clean boards, correct the pitch toward the drain where framing allows, and set a fully adhered or heat-welded single-ply. See flat roof replacement and how EPDM, TPO and PVC membranes compare.

In Wellington-Harrington the deck often ends at a party wall two feet from the neighbor's building. That termination is where cheap work shows first.

Reroofing under solar and heat pumps

If the roof has under eight years left, replace it before the panels go up. If the array is already there, we coordinate a detach and reset with your installer, rebuild the deck, and set every rack foot on a flashed mount that tucks under the course above. Sealant lasts a few winters. Metal lasts the roof.

Ice dams, snow load and the permit

Cambridge attics were finished long after the roofs went on. Insulation jammed against the rafters closed off the eave, so the deck runs warm and the edge stays frozen. We treat that with attic ventilation and insulation rather than heat cable, and every asphalt reroof carries an ice barrier from the roof edge to at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line, as 780 CMR requires. Design ground snow load here is 40 psf, from the 780 CMR Eighth Edition table.

Cambridge issues its own permits through the city's Inspectional Services Department, and we pull it. The harder constraint is the street: resident permit parking, one-way blocks barely wide enough for a container, traffic around Harvard and Kendall. We settle staging on the estimate visit, not on tear-off morning. Over the line we also handle roofing in Somerville and roof repair in Watertown.