Roofing in Elmhurst, Where Old Bungalows Meet New Infill

Elmhurst roofing across three building eras

Prewar houses near downtown and the college. The streets within walking distance of York Street, Wilder Park and Elmhurst University hold many of the city’s oldest homes: bungalows, foursquares, Tudor Revivals with steep front gables, and Prairie-influenced houses with low hipped roofs and deep overhangs. Elmhurst even has a Prairie house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Roofs from this era often sit on original board sheathing, around chimneys rebuilt more than once, with flashing improvised by whoever did the last re-roof.

Postwar ranches and Cape Cods. Away from the train, the city filled in with modest one- and one-and-a-half-story homes. Their roofs are simple; their attics are not. Cramped spaces with little room for insulation or airflow are why so many of these houses grow icicles along the eaves.

New infill construction. Elmhurst has seen a long run of teardowns, with large new homes replacing smaller ones lot by lot. New does not mean trouble-free. Complicated rooflines with many valleys, stone or fiber-cement walls meeting the shingles, and missing kick-out flashing are the details we end up correcting ten or fifteen years in.

Prairie eaves and Tudor gables on older Elmhurst homes

Prairie-style roofs look calm, but their broad overhangs create long stretches of cold eave where ice builds. On those houses we carry self-adhering ice barrier well past the wall line and check that the soffit vents are genuinely open to the attic, not painted shut or packed with insulation.

Tudor Revival homes have the opposite profile: tall, steep gables, often with stucco or half-timbered walls rising straight out of the roof. Where stucco meets shingles, water needs a planned way out. We look for buried or missing step flashing and kick-outs and rebuild them instead of caulking the joint, because caulk against stucco rarely survives more than a couple of winters.

When a house was clearly built for slate or clay tile and now wears plain three-tab asphalt, we can show heavier designer shingles or synthetic slate that suit the architecture without the weight of the real thing.

Kick-out flashing and valleys on newer Elmhurst builds

Owners of newer Elmhurst homes usually call for one of three reasons: a stain near a second-floor window, a drip at a skylight, or water in the garage where a lower roof meets a two-story wall. Almost every time, the cause is a detail rather than the shingles. A tall wall that sheds water onto a lower roof needs a kick-out flashing at its base to steer that water into the gutter. Without one, water runs behind the siding or stone and rots the sheathing where nobody can see it.

A roof inspection around year ten is worth scheduling on a large new house. We photograph every valley, wall junction and penetration, identify the shingle line when we can, and separate the fixes worth doing now from the ones that can wait for the first full replacement.

Gutters, downspouts and Elmhurst’s stormwater

Elmhurst has a long history of basement and street flooding, and the city has spent years on flood-control projects. Your roof is a large part of what lands in your yard. A 2,000-square-foot roof sheds roughly 1,250 gallons of water in a one-inch rain, and every gallon has to go somewhere.

• We size gutters and downspouts to the roof area each one drains, rather than defaulting to the narrowest stock.
• Long runs get an extra downspout so the gutter is not overwhelmed at one corner.
• Discharge is carried away from the foundation, and we check the city’s current rules before rerouting any downspout.
• Under heavy tree cover we fit guards that suit the debris, since maple seeds and oak catkins clog different screens.

Roof and exterior problems we see in Elmhurst

• Ice building at the long eaves of Prairie-style and story-and-a-half homes
• Missing kick-out flashing where two-story walls meet lower roofs on newer builds
• Stucco-to-roof joints on Tudor gables sealed with caulk instead of flashing
• Loose counter-flashing on rebuilt brick chimneys
• Undersized gutters and short downspouts emptying beside foundations

Areas we work in

Downtown and the York Street corridor · Streets around Wilder Park · Neighborhoods near Elmhurst University · North Avenue corridor · St. Charles Road corridor · Roosevelt Road and south Elmhurst

Elmhurst roofing questions

What do roofers find under the shingles of a 100-year-old Elmhurst house?

Often board sheathing instead of plywood, sometimes with gaps between the boards, and occasionally an older layer nobody removed. Our estimate lists a per-sheet price for new decking, and we photograph anything we replace before it is covered.

Do you do roof repair in Elmhurst, or only roof replacement?

Both. The Elmhurst roof repair page covers the leaks we trace most often here, from Tudor gables to new-construction wall junctions.

Can a new house next door affect my roof?

It can. A roof that used to dry in afternoon sun may now stay damp longer, which encourages moss and algae and slows snowmelt at the eaves. We note shading changes on inspections and factor them into ventilation and ice-barrier recommendations.