Hurricane-Season Roof Repair in Lake City
Lake City is the bottom end of Florence County, where US 52 heads on toward Kingstree and the Williamsburg County line is close by. People who have never been here usually know it for ArtFields, when the downtown fills up every spring and the old brick storefronts turn into galleries. People who live here know it as a town of older houses on shady streets, with newer homes and farms spread around the edges.
It also sits a little closer to the coast than Florence does. That is not much on a map, but when a tropical system comes inland, Lake City tends to get the rain bands early and keep them late. A lot of the roof work we do here starts the week after one of those storms.
The Roofs on Lake City Homes
Near downtown you find older frame houses with steep roofs, several gables, porch roofs, and chimneys that have been flashed and re-flashed over the years. Those roofs have more valleys and more places where one plane meets another, and every one of those spots is a place water can find its way in. Farther out are the brick ranches from the 1960s and 70s, low-slope and simple, but often on their second layer of shingles. Then there are manufactured homes and newer houses with architectural shingles that are just starting to show their first problems around vents and ridge caps.
Older homes also tend to have board sheathing under the shingles instead of plywood, and attics that were never vented well. Both matter when we decide what a roof needs, and both are things we check before we hand you a number.
Hurricane Season and Everything Else
Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018 both brought wind, downed trees and days of rain across the county, and Lake City got its share. The damage from storms like that is not always a missing roof. More often it is a few shingles creased back by the wind, a limb that cracked a rafter, or flashing that let go under hours of rain. Those problems can stay hidden until the next storm finds them. Before the season starts, the state's hurricane prep guide is worth a read, and a roof check in early summer beats finding the weak spot in September.
Outside of hurricane season, the summer brings afternoon thunderstorms with straight-line wind and occasional hail. Tall pines shade a lot of yards here, which means needles in the gutters, moss on the shady slopes and black algae streaks on the shingles.
What We Bring to Lake City
Right after a storm, the first job is keeping water out. We tarp open spots, get limbs off, and come back for the real repair once the weather settles. For the everyday leak, the one that shows up as a stain on the dining room ceiling every time it rains hard, we track it to the source and do the targeted repair that stops it instead of guessing at it.
We also replace worn-out roofs, rebuild chimney and wall flashing, fix soft decking, and clean out valleys and gutters. When there is storm damage, we take photos of everything so you have a record for an insurance claim.
Close By in Every Direction
Lake City sits at the bottom of the US 52 run from Florence, through Effingham and Coward. The farmhouses and pole barns up the road in Scranton take the same open-field wind, so a lot of what is on this page applies there too.
Let Us Take a Look
The form takes a minute. Give us your name, a phone number and a line about what you are dealing with: a tarp that needs replacing, a leak by the chimney, wind damage from last week. The address helps but is not required. We call back, come out, and show you what we found.