Neighborhood Roofers in Florence
Drive the streets around Timrod Park and you see the roofs a lot of Florence was built on: low brick ranches from the 1950s through the 1970s, wide eaves, a carport on one end and a pine or an oak older than the house leaning over the back slope. Head west toward I-95 and the picture changes to subdivisions off the Second Loop and Hoffmeyer Road, where the shingles are newer and the lots are more open. Florence Roofing Pros works on both, and the trouble we find on each one is different enough to be worth spelling out.
This page covers what Florence roofs tend to go through, what we do about it, and which towns around the city we also reach.
Old ranches downtown, newer roofs out west
The mid-century ranches near downtown are solid houses, but many of them are on their second or third roof by now, and it is common to find a newer layer of shingles nailed straight over an older one. That extra weight and the trapped heat shorten the top layer's life. Underneath, these homes often have board decking rather than plywood, and where a leak has run for a while we find soft boards around chimneys, plumbing vents and the spot where a den or carport was tied into the original roofline. Those tie-ins are the single most common leak point we see on Florence ranches.
The subdivisions on the west side have different problems. The roofs are simpler and the decking is sound, but builder-grade flashing and rubber pipe boots dry out in the sun and split, and ridge vents installed in a hurry let wind-driven rain in during a hard storm. A roof can look fine from the driveway and still have three or four small entry points that only show up as a stain on a bedroom ceiling months later.
What the weather here does to a roof
Summer is the hard season in Florence. Afternoon thunderstorms build fast, and the straight-line winds that come with them lift shingle tabs, break the seal strip and leave the next rain a way in. Hail is occasional rather than routine, but when it comes through it bruises shingles in a way that is easy to miss from the ground. Spring brings the Pee Dee's severe-weather season, with tornado warnings some years and plenty of wind even when nothing touches down.
Then there are the pines. Tall loblolly pines shade half the older neighborhoods in town, and they drop limbs in every storm and needles every week of the year. Needles pack into valleys and gutters, hold water against the shingles and push it sideways under the edges. The shade keeps the north-facing slopes damp, which is why so many Florence roofs carry black algae streaks and patches of moss. None of that is cosmetic for long; wet shingles wear out faster than dry ones.
The roofing work we do in Florence
Most calls from inside the city start with a leak or a missing patch of shingles after a storm. We handle the leak and flashing work first: finding where the water actually enters, replacing the damaged shingles and decking, and resealing or replacing the flashing that failed. When a roof is past saving, we tear it off down to the deck, replace the bad wood and put on a new system rather than layering over the old one.
We also work on the low-slope roofs over downtown storefronts, churches and small offices, where ponding water and tired seams are the usual complaint; that side of the business is covered on our page about flat and low-slope buildings. Re-roofing inside city limits generally needs a building permit, and the city's building department is where that runs, so we account for it in the schedule before we set a start date.
Towns around Florence we also reach
Plenty of Florence roofs sit right at the edge of the city, and the ones a few miles further out have the same problems. Quinby borders the east side of town, Effingham sits south along US 52, and Darlington is a short run north, where we see a lot of older two-story homes with their own set of leak problems. Beyond that, Timmonsville and Lamar to the west are farm country with more metal roofs and outbuildings. Hartsville, Lake City and Marion are further out but still on our list, and the same form below reaches us from any of them.
Tell us what is going on with your roof
Use the form to give us your name, a phone number and, if you like, the address. In the message box, describe what you are seeing: a stain on the ceiling, shingles in the yard, a limb on the roof, or just a roof you know is getting old. The price comes after someone has been up there, and that holds for a single-shingle repair in a Timrod Park neighborhood and for a full replacement out west.