Roofing Contractor Serving Lake County, Illinois

North Shore roofs: slate, tile, cedar and copper

In Highland Park, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff and parts of Deerfield, many older houses were roofed with materials meant to outlast several asphalt roofs: natural slate, clay tile, cedar shakes, and copper valleys and gutters. Those roofs usually fail at the details first. A cracked slate lets water reach the felt beneath it, a cedar course rots where leaves collect, or a valley wears through decades before the field around it.

When the field is sound, we repair rather than replace: slip in matching slates with copper hooks or bibs, re-flash chimneys and valleys, and leave the original roof in place. When replacement does make sense, synthetic slate and shake can keep the look at a fraction of the weight. Homes on the bluffs also take wind straight off Lake Michigan, so ridges, hips and eave edges get extra fastening and inspection.

Libertyville, Mundelein and the central Lake County suburbs

Central Lake County is subdivision country. Libertyville was the first county seat, under the name Independence Grove, before the seat moved to Waukegan, then a lakeside settlement called Little Fort. Today Libertyville, Mundelein, Vernon Hills, Gurnee, Grayslake and Lake Zurich are ringed by neighborhoods from the 1970s through the 2000s, many with homeowners associations and approved color lists. The roofs are mostly asphalt shingles on fairly complex framing, with hips, dormers over bonus rooms, and skylights in vaulted family rooms.

On these homes we spend most of our inspection time on the trouble spots that complexity creates: valleys that carry water from two large roof planes, step flashing where a second-story wall rises out of a first-story roof, and skylight curbs that were flashed with caulk instead of metal. Bonus rooms over garages deserve a look from inside too, because they are often short on insulation and ventilation, which makes them prone to ice dams.

Cottages and year-round homes on the Chain O’Lakes

The Chain O’Lakes, shared with McHenry County, is made up of lakes linked by the Fox River and by smaller channels. Rail service reached Antioch in 1886 and Fox Lake in 1901, and the area grew as a summer resort. Many cottages built for summer use have since been winterized, expanded and lived in year-round.

Converted cottages carry a predictable set of roof problems:

• Three or more layers of shingles stacked over the original roof, adding weight to light framing.
• Shallow add-on roofs over enclosed porches, too flat for shingles to shed water.
• Little or no attic ventilation, because nobody heated the house when it was built.
• Short overhangs and no ice barrier, which let ice dams push water into walls.

The fix often starts with a full tear-off and a decking check, followed by a low-slope membrane on the porch roof and new intake and exhaust vents.

What the July 2017 flood says about roof drainage

In July 2017, parts of Lake County received more than seven inches of rain in two days. The Des Plaines River set a record crest at Gurnee, upstream gauges at Russell and Lincolnshire set records too, and the county board chairman declared a disaster on July 12. Because the Fox and Des Plaines rivers flow south out of Wisconsin, water kept rising for days after the rain stopped.

A roof does not cause river flooding, but it does decide where storm water lands around your foundation. Each inch of rain on 2,000 square feet of roof is roughly 1,250 gallons. Undersized gutters overflow at the eaves, and downspouts that empty beside the foundation send that water toward the basement. Larger seamless gutters, more downspouts on long runs, and extensions that carry water well away from the house are inexpensive changes that matter most during exactly this kind of storm.

Lake County roofing permits

Each municipality issues its own roofing permits, and some publish dedicated forms; Lake Zurich, for example, has a combined roof and siding application. Unincorporated parcels are handled by Lake County’s Planning, Building and Development department, which requires permits for new construction and for additions and alterations and offers an “Ask a Permit Tech” service for questions about specific properties. We confirm the requirement for your address before quoting and include any permit cost in the estimate.

Lake County roofing questions

Can a North Shore slate roof be repaired instead of replaced?

Yes, when the rest of the field is sound. We remove the broken pieces, slip in matching slates and secure them with hooks or copper bibs so no new nail holes are exposed. If many slates are delaminating or the nails holding them have rusted through, we will show you photos and talk through partial or full replacement instead.

Do you work on homes around Fox Lake, Antioch and Lake Villa?

Yes. Lake cottages and converted year-round homes are a regular part of our Lake County work. Expect us to check how many layers are on the roof, how the porch additions tie in and whether the attic has any ventilation, since those three things drive the scope.

My Gurnee gutters overflow in every heavy rain. Do I need bigger ones?

Often, yes. Many homes have five-inch gutters with downspouts spaced too far apart for the roof area draining into them. Six-inch seamless gutters with an extra downspout or two, sized to the slopes that feed them, usually solve the overflow. We measure each run before recommending anything.