Roof Replacement and Repair in Coward
Coward is a small town on US 52, about halfway between Florence and Lake City. Drive through and you can see what the place is built on: farm fields, stands of pine, a few churches near the highway, and houses set back on lots wide enough that the closest neighbor is well down the road.
The homes here are a mix. There are brick ranches from the 1960s and 70s, older frame farmhouses, manufactured homes, and newer houses put up on family land in the last twenty years. Most of them wear asphalt shingles, with metal on the porches, sheds and shops. A lot of those shingle roofs are on their second or third decade now, and that is where most of our Coward calls start.
What Goes Wrong on Roofs Around Coward
The most common thing we find is plain age. Shingles that have baked through enough South Carolina summers lose their granules, curl at the corners and crack across the tabs. You can often see it from the yard as a roof that looks patchy or darker in some spots than others. Once the granules are gone, the sun gets at the asphalt and the shingle gets brittle fast.
Wind is the second. Open fields give a summer thunderstorm a long, clear run at a house, and straight-line gusts lift the edges of older shingles, break the seal strip, and peel them back along the rakes and ridge. The house might look fine afterward, but a lifted shingle lets the next rain slide in underneath.
Then there are the pines. Limbs come down in storms, needles fill the valleys and gutters, and the shady side of the roof grows moss and black streaks. Add flashing that has pulled loose at a chimney or where an addition meets the main roof, and you have most of the leaks we fix out here.
How a Visit Goes
When you send the form, we call back and set a time that works for you. At the house we start on the ground, walking the outside and looking at the roof lines, gutters and any limbs overhead. If you have a stain inside, we look at that too, and at the attic if there is a way in, because the wet spot on the decking usually tells us more than the spot on the ceiling.
Then someone gets up on the roof. We check the shingles, feel for soft decking, look at every pipe boot, vent and flashing, and take photos as we go. You see what we saw, and nothing gets started until you have said yes.
If you are wondering whether a re-roof on your property needs a permit, the county's own website is the place to start, and we will tell you what we know when we are out there.
Fix It or Start Over
Not every old roof needs to come off. If the shingles still lie flat, the deck is solid and the leak traces back to one boot or one stretch of flashing, a repair is the honest answer and we will say so. A repair can buy a sound roof several more years.
When the shingles are brittle across most of the roof, there are two layers already, or we are finding soft decking in more than one place, patching turns into paying for the same visit over and over. That is the point where we talk about tearing it off and starting fresh: new decking where it is needed, underlayment, flashing and shingles, done in one push so the house is not left open.
Coward sits in the middle of the US 52 stretch we cover, from Effingham down to the farms around Scranton and Lake City.
Ask for a Free Quote
Use the form to send your name, a phone number and what is going on, whether that is a drip in the hallway, shingles blown into the field or a roof that just looks tired. The address helps but is optional. We will call, come out, and tell you straight what the roof needs.