Roofing Contractors in Salem, MA

Slate, cedar and copper

Most antique stock in 01970 is slate or wood shingle over hand-hewn rafters and gapped board sheathing. Under 780 CMR neither can be overlaid. Both come off to the deck. Most McIntire district calls are not tear-offs, though: failed valley metal, a slipped course, a chimney flashed with roof cement. Targeted slate roof repair buys decades. In valleys, gutter linings and widow's walk decks we run copper and standing-seam metal, not aluminum.

Federal roofs hide a flat deck

A McIntire-era mansion reads as pitched from the sidewalk. It is not, on top. Behind the balustrade sits a flat deck draining through an internal leader or a box gutter buried in the cornice. Those box gutters are the leak we find most on Chestnut and Federal Street. A seam opens, water runs inside the cornice, and the stain lands a room away. We reline them and counterflash in metal, not caulk.

Salt air at Derby Wharf, Winter Island and the Willows

Within roughly 3,000 feet of saltwater, FEMA coastal guidance calls for 300-series stainless fasteners. In Salem that band takes in Derby Street, Bridge Street Neck, the Willows, Winter Island and the harbor side of Lafayette Street. Copper nails are standard for cedar and slate. Never fasten copper flashing with galvanized nails. The two metals corrode each other, and you are back at that chimney in five years. Salem also sits in the windborne-debris wind exposure, covered in our guide to coastal roofing and salt air on the North Shore.

Snow load and steep colonial pitches

Design ground snow load for Salem is 40 psf, from the 780 CMR Eighth Edition table. Confirm it with the building official. The ice barrier rule is where old pitches bite. Underlayment runs from the roof edge to at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line, and on slopes of 8:12 or steeper at least 36 inches along the slope. Plenty of Salem gables are 10:12, so that second number governs.

The Point, North Salem and Witchcraft Heights

Not every Salem roof is a museum piece. The Point and North Salem are dense multi-families with low-slope rear ells and porch stacks blocking the staging wall. Witchcraft Heights is story-and-a-half capes, the region's worst ice-dam producers: finished rooms under the deck, no eave path. We treat that with attic ventilation and insulation, not heat cable, and rebuild the chimney flashing somebody smeared with tar.

We pull the permit through the Salem Building Department. Full roof replacement ranges widely with material, pitch and sheathing condition, and we put the number in writing after we walk it. We work the same antique stock in Beverly and Marblehead.