Roofing in Surfside Beach

Surfside is a small beach town with a mixed housing stock: cottages that have been here a long time, houses rebuilt since, and newer construction filling in. On one street you can have three roofs with nothing structurally in common.

Older beach cottages

The interesting part is the deck. Older construction here may be planked rather than sheeted, and decades of coastal weather, previous repairs and sometimes storm damage have not necessarily been kind to it.

You do not know until the tear off. Get a per sheet decking price agreed in writing before anybody starts, because that is the line that decides the final number on an older house.

Multiple layers turn up too. Overlaying was normal for a long time, and two or three stacked roofs is far more tear off and disposal than one. A bid assuming one layer will not hold if there are three.

Newer construction

Different problem. Built to more recent wind requirements, usually sheeted properly, and the question is whether the original work was done to the specification the location deserves rather than the minimum.

The commonest shortfall is ventilation: exhaust at the ridge with insufficient intake, which shortens shingle life in this climate and pulls conditioned air out of the house.

The mix of owners

Some of this is somebody’s home, some is a rental, some is a second property visited a few times a year. The roofing consequence is simple: on a property nobody is watching, problems are found late, and late problems in a humid coastal climate are structural rather than cosmetic.

If you are not here often, a scheduled look twice a year costs little and converts emergencies into planned work.

Salt

Full coastal exposure. Everything in the leaks and corrosion page applies at full strength: the metal is the countdown, not the shingle.