Roof Repair and Replacement in Pfafftown, NC

Which office issues a roof permit in Pfafftown?

It depends on where the address falls. Re-roofing a house needs a building permit in Winston-Salem, while patching or replacing a few shingles typically does not. If your Pfafftown address is inside the city, that is the rule. If it is inside Lewisville or in the unincorporated county, the office and its rules can differ, so confirm before work starts rather than after.

Forsyth County Inspections Division, at 100 E. First Street, Suite 328 in Winston-Salem, (336) 727-2624, is a reasonable first call when you are not sure. Ask whose limits the parcel is in, then ask what that office wants for a re-roof. Your roofer will normally know the answer for your street, but it costs a few minutes to check for yourself.

A homeowner who owns and lives in the house may re-roof it personally without hiring a contractor. Anyone else is in contractor territory. Local permits apply either way, and you should check any contractor's licence or registration with the issuing authority. How North Carolina licenses roofers walks through the threshold.

What do storm warnings for this part of Forsyth County say?

Severe thunderstorm warnings for Forsyth County have cited gusts of 60 to 70 mph and quarter-size hail, with damage to roofs, siding, outbuildings and trees. The warnings we have seen name Winston-Salem, Kernersville and Clemmons along with Lexington and Thomasville. Pfafftown is not named in them, but it lies inside the county they cover, and a wind line does not stop at an annexation boundary.

After a storm like that, the usual ground-level signs are shingles lying in the yard, a bare strip along the ridge, a sagging gutter or a limb across the roofline. If a limb is down, keep off the roof and away from anything it may have pulled loose. Storm damage and your roof explains how a roofer sorts wind damage from age.

Water is the other half of the year. Monthly rain in the area runs roughly 2.6 to 3.4 inches, and July has the most wet days, about 13.6 of them. A small lifted shingle in June can therefore turn into a ceiling stain by August.

How old are the roofs in a place this size?

There is no sourced house-age figure for Pfafftown alone, so it would be wrong to invent one. The reference point we do have is citywide: the median Winston-Salem home was built in 1977, with large groups of houses from the 1950s through the 1980s. A roof on a house of that vintage is likely on its second or third covering, and the age of the covering matters more than the age of the frame.

Humid summers add a slow problem. July is the hottest month, with an average high of 87 F, and it is also the muggiest. Algae feeds on the limestone filler in asphalt shingles, leaving dark streaks, and moss lifts shingle edges and holds water against them. Freeze-thaw winters make that worse, and soft washing at low pressure is the method roofers often recommend over a pressure washer.