Roofing Contractors in East Boston, MA

What is actually under an East Boston roof

Open a triple-decker off Princeton Street and the deck is square-edge board sheathing with gaps, not plywood, usually two layers of modified bitumen deep. Three to four stories of staging. A rear porch stack blocking the back. A party wall a few feet away, and nowhere obvious to put a dumpster. We plan that before the tear-off, not during it.

We install EPDM, TPO and modified bitumen, and we pick by the roof. Fully adhered EPDM sits well on an old irregular deck. TPO reflects heat on a sun-baked Day Square rooftop. Our EPDM, TPO and PVC flat roof comparison walks through the trade-offs, and flat roof replacement in Boston covers how we scope the job.

Salt air is a fastener problem before it is a membrane problem

You never see salt corrosion coming. It works at the plate, the screw and the back of the edge metal while the membrane still looks new. FEMA coastal guidance recommends 300-series stainless fasteners within roughly 3,000 feet of salt water, which covers nearly all of 02128 - Jeffries Point, Maverick, Harbor View, Orient Heights Beach. Hot-dipped galvanized is the practical floor. Copper nails for cedar and slate.

Wind, snow and the numbers that govern the work

780 CMR puts the windborne debris region within a mile of the coastal mean high-water line where Vasd reaches 130 mph, plus anywhere Vasd hits 140. East Boston has open exposure across the harbor and the marsh with nothing upwind to slow it. Failures start at the perimeter - edge metal, the first fastener row, the parapet cap. We tighten corner and perimeter attachment and lock the edge mechanically. Storm damage roof repair is a season here, not a slogan.

Boston's design ground snow load is 40 psf under the 780 CMR Eighth Edition table; confirm the current value with the ISD building official on your permit. Logan averages 49.2 inches of snow a year. The damage comes from the swing - about 92 days at or below 32 degrees, but only about 23 that stay frozen all day. That gap is freeze-thaw, and it splits parapet mortar and lifts counterflashing. Snow does not slide off a flat roof. It sits, melts at the warm deck and refreezes at the cold parapet.

On the pitched roofs up in Orient Heights the ice barrier rule applies: two cemented layers of underlayment or a self-adhering polymer-modified sheet from the eave to at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line, and at least 36 inches along the slope on anything 8:12 or steeper.

Permits, design review and low ground

A reroof with no structural work goes through Boston ISD on a short-form permit: $20 application plus $10 per $1,000 of the work estimate. We file the trade license, certificate of liability insurance, workers' comp affidavit, signed contract, site safety plan affidavit and Mattocks-Higgins affidavit. East Boston is not one of the Boston Landmarks Commission districts, so unlike Beacon Hill or the South End there is no landmarks approval to clear before ISD will issue. Individual buildings can still carry a designation - call the BLC at 617-635-1935 if you are unsure.

Some buildings under the Logan flight paths carry sound-insulation retrofits that added mass and layers to the roof assembly. That changes what a tear-off finds, so we check the deck before we quote. Around Maverick Square and the waterfront, coastal flooding and stormwater backup mean an internal drain can tie into a system already under pressure. Every parapet job we do gets through-wall scuppers as overflow.

What we look at on the first visit

• Drain bowls, strainers and scupper openings - clear, sized and reachable
• Parapet cap, counterflashing and mortar joints, where freeze-thaw lands first
• Fastener and plate condition under the membrane, not just seam condition
• Rot at the rear porch tie-in, where a lot of Eastie leaks actually start
• Ventilation where a low-slope deck sits over conditioned space - see attic ventilation and insulation

We cross the creek for roofing in Chelsea and run up Bennington Street into Revere roofing most weeks. Same crew, same salt, same materials. Paulo Silva walks the roof and writes the estimate himself.