Roofing Contractor in Mt. Lebanon, PA

Mt. Lebanon roofing from Cam and Drew Kinnee. GAF Silver Pledge certified. Tudor, Colonial, and storybook home specialists. Free estimates. 412-844-5999.

Mt. Lebanon is one of the most architecturally distinctive communities in Western PA. The housing stock, Tudors, Colonials, brick storybook homes, mostly built between the 1920s and 1950s, is the reason Mt. Lebanon looks the way it does. Roofing these homes requires more thought than the standard tract-home replacement. Generic builder-grade shingles look wrong on a Mt. Lebanon Tudor. The roof needs to fit the architecture.

What Makes a Mt. Lebanon Roof Different

We work Mt. Lebanon regularly and understand what these homes need. Cam and Drew Kinnee install GAF designer shingle lines (Camelot II, Grand Sequoia) when the architecture calls for it, and we know how to flash the chimneys, dormers, and complex rooflines that characterize Mt. Lebanon housing.

It is about twenty minutes from our Canonsburg shop to Washington Road, up Route 19 or over on I-79. That matters more than it sounds. When somebody off Beverly Road or Bower Hill calls about a stain on a bedroom ceiling, one of us can usually be up there the same day instead of behind a queue of three other towns.

Mt. Lebanon has the oldest housing stock of anywhere we work, and it changes the job. A 1928 Tudor has far more roof per square foot of house than a 1998 Colonial. More valleys, more gables, more dormer cheeks, more chimneys, more places where two roof planes run into a wall and somebody has to get the flashing right. That is where these houses leak. It is almost never the field shingle that failed first.

The Housing Eras Behind Mt. Lebanon Rooflines

Mt. Lebanon filled in between the 1920s and the 1950s as the streetcar pushed south, and the layout still shows it: tight side yards, heavy tree cover, brick and stone construction, and homes built with materials that are now pushing a hundred years old. Nearly every one of them is on its second, third, or fourth roof.

Mt. Lebanon's housing breaks down into a few categories. Original 1920s and 1930s Tudors and storybook cottages in the most established neighborhoods near the high school, around Beverly Road, and through Virginia Manor have steep complex rooflines, multiple gables, dormers, and often original slate or tile that got replaced with cheaper asphalt at some point. These homes usually need a designer grade shingle replacement to maintain visual character.

Colonial and brick two-stories built in the 1930s through the 1950s have more straightforward rooflines but premium materials and craftsmanship original to the build. Replacement on these homes calls for at least architectural asphalt (GAF Timberline HDZ) and proper flashing rework around chimneys and dormers.

Mid-century Colonials and ranches in the newer Mt. Lebanon sections are more straightforward to replace. Those wrap in two days. The Tudors take four, and any roofer quoting one like the other has not walked it.

Designer Shingles on Mt. Lebanon Tudors and Storybook Homes

For Tudor and storybook homes where the original was slate or cedar shake, we install GAF Camelot II, a heavy profile designer asphalt with slate-look color blends and shadow lines. It is the closest visual match to natural slate you can get in an asphalt product. We also install GAF Grand Sequoia, which carries cedar-shake visual character that works well on Tudor-style homes. Both designer lines carry the same GAF Silver Pledge warranty as Timberline HDZ: 50-year material, 15-year workmanship, and transferable if you sell the house.

Mt. Lebanon does not have an HOA telling you what color to put on, but the street does. A flat gray roof on a brick Tudor sitting between two slate-look roofs reads wrong from the sidewalk, and it costs you when you list. We bring full-size sample boards and hold them against your brick and trim in daylight, because the chips in a brochure tell you nothing. If designer is not in the budget, we will point you at the Timberline HDZ colors that read closest to the block instead of pushing the upgrade.

Roof Repair in Mt. Lebanon

Most of what we get called for in Mt. Lebanon is not a full tear-off. It is a chimney that has been getting worse for three winters, a dormer corner that stains the ceiling every time the wind comes out of the west, a slipped shingle in a valley, or a run of step flashing somebody caulked instead of replacing. On housing this old, the repair list is mostly flashing, valleys, and masonry, not shingles.

If a repair will hold, we repair it and tell you so. If the roof is at the end and a patch is just money you will spend twice, you hear that before you write a check. Full detail on the repairs we handle here is on our roof repair in Mt. Lebanon page.

Ice, Leaves, and Chimneys on Mt. Lebanon Roofs

Mt. Lebanon's combination of mature tree canopy, complex rooflines with a lot of flashing, and original or older housing stock makes it particularly susceptible to ice damming, leaf-clog gutter overflow, and chimney flashing failures. For ice damming, we extend ice and water shield well beyond code minimum during replacement. For tree canopy gutter issues, we recommend micro-mesh gutter guards on most Mt. Lebanon installs.

The ice problem here is not really a roof problem, it is an attic problem. Warm air leaks up out of the living space, melts snow on the upper roof, and the water runs down to the cold overhang and freezes into a dam. The next melt backs up under the shingles. Plenty of finished attics and knee-wall spaces in older Mt. Lebanon homes have almost no intake ventilation left, because somebody insulated over the soffit decades ago. When we tear off, we open the intake back up and run continuous ridge vent so the next roof does not repeat the last one.

The tree canopy is the other half. Oak and maple over the house means wet leaves sitting in the valleys all fall, and a valley that stays damp for six weeks rots underlayment long before the shingles wear out. Clear the valleys and gutters every fall or put guards on. That one habit adds years to a Mt. Lebanon roof.

Roofing Services We Provide in Mt. Lebanon

Three things we do for Mt. Lebanon homeowners. Full roof replacement on a complete GAF system, standard architectural or designer, with the municipal permit pulled and the inspection scheduled by us. Targeted roof repair when the roof still has life left in it. And gutters and downspouts, including oversized downspouts and micro-mesh guards, which on a tree-covered Mt. Lebanon lot is worth doing the same week as the roof instead of two years later.