Boston roofing, from triple-deckers to row houses.

Boston roofs work harder than most. The city runs on dense, closely spaced housing: three-story triple-deckers packed along the streets of Dorchester and South Boston, brick row houses in the South End and Back Bay, and older wood-frame single-families in Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, West Roxbury, and Hyde Park. Cross the harbor into East Boston and you find another dense grid of two- and three-family homes. What ties almost all of them together is a roof that mixes a steep front slope with a flat or low-slope rear section, so one address routinely needs two different roofing systems installed and detailed right.

Then there is the weather Boston throws at a roof. Nor’easters drive rain sideways off the harbor and lift shingles that were not fastened for it. Winter piles on snow load and forms ice dams that back meltwater up under old shingles and into the plaster below. Spring freeze-thaw cycles then pry at any flashing the storms loosened around chimneys, dormers, and the parapet walls on flat rear decks. On the historic homes of Beacon Hill and the South End there is a further wrinkle: the exterior look has to stay period-correct while the underlayment, ventilation, and flashing underneath quietly move up to a modern standard.

Roxaco has spent over 11 years on New England roofs and covers Boston from our base in Milford, MA. The hard part of a city roof is often not the roof itself but the block it sits on, so we plan the permit, the dumpster placement, the parking, and the material staging before the crew ever arrives. Most single-family roofs come off and go back on in a single day, which keeps your street from being tied up for a week. Every install is GAF and CertainTeed certified work, and qualifying roofs are backed by a 50-year warranty.