Portage Roofing
Lester’s Roofing & Carpentry works on roofs in Portage and the surrounding communities along the Allegheny Front in eastern Cambria County. We handle residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial roofing: leak repairs, ice dam damage, metal roof work, restoration coatings and replacements.
We are based in Rossiter, Indiana County, and we have been roofing in this part of Pennsylvania for over 16 years. We are a certified Conklin Roofing Systems contractor and a registered Pennsylvania Home Improvement Contractor, HIC #PA042939.
Call 814-952-2469 for a free roof inspection in Portage.
Roofing Services in Portage
- Roof leak repair. Tracing water back to where it is actually getting in, which is rarely directly above where it shows up inside.
- Residential roofing. Repairs, shingle work, valley and flashing work, and metal roof installation on homes.
- Metal roof repair and coating. Fasteners, seams and flashing, which is where metal roofs fail long before the panels do.
- Roof restoration. Coating a sound roof instead of tearing it off, where the deck and insulation allow it.
- Roof maintenance. Scheduled inspections, drainage clearing and minor repairs, with the written records a warranty needs.
- Free roof inspections. On any building type.
Portage Sits Where the Snow Lands
Portage grew up around the old Allegheny Portage Railroad, the route that hauled canal boats over the mountain because there was no other way across. That geography has not changed. The town sits right against the western face of the Allegheny Front, where air moving in from the west is forced up and over the ridge.
Air that rises cools, and cooling air drops its moisture. That is why this stretch of eastern Cambria County reliably gets more snow than places only twenty miles west of it at similar latitude.
For a roof it means two things. There is more accumulated load, particularly on low-slope commercial and farm buildings where snow sits rather than sliding off. And there is more of the slow melt and refreeze cycle that produces ice dams, which is the problem we get called out for here more than any other.
Ice Dams Are Not a Gutter Problem
This is the thing most people have backwards, and it costs them money, so it is worth setting out properly.
An ice dam forms when the upper part of a roof is warm enough to melt the snow lying on it while the lower part, out over the eave, is not. Meltwater runs down the slope, reaches the cold overhang where there is no heated space underneath, and freezes there. That ridge of ice grows, and the water arriving behind it has nowhere to go, so it pools and backs up underneath the shingles. Shingles shed running water. They are not designed to hold standing water, so it gets through and into the ceiling.
So the roof is not the cause. The heat is. The upper roof is warm because heat is escaping from the living space into the attic, and it is staying warm because the attic is not ventilated well enough to carry that heat away.
Which means the real fixes are these, in order of what actually works:
- Seal the air leaks into the attic. Recessed lights, the attic hatch, plumbing stacks, bathroom fans venting into the attic instead of outside, gaps around the chimney chase. Warm air escaping through these is the main heat source melting your roof.
- Get the insulation depth right. Less heat reaching the attic in the first place means a colder roof deck. It also cuts your heating bill, which is the same problem viewed from a different angle.
- Ventilate the attic properly. Intake at the soffit and exhaust at the ridge, working together. The aim is an attic close to outside temperature, so the whole roof stays uniformly cold and the snow on it simply sits there.
- Then deal with the roof edge. Ice and water shield along the eaves is a genuine protection, but it is a backstop for when a dam forms anyway. It is not a cure.
Heated cables in the gutters do not fix anything either. They keep a channel open through the ice, which stops water backing up tonight, and they run your meter all winter while the underlying cause carries on. They have their place on a roof where nothing else is practical. They are not the first thing to reach for.
If you have had a stain appear on an upstairs ceiling during a thaw, that is an ice dam until proven otherwise, and the useful time to look at it is before the next winter, not during it.
Commercial and Agricultural Roofing Near Portage
Beyond the borough the buildings are farms, barns, workshops, garages and small industrial units, and most of those roofs are exposed-fastener metal.
Those roofs almost never fail in the panels. They fail at the fasteners, whose rubber washers harden and shrink through years of heat and cold until they stop sealing, and at the seams and flashing details. Heavy snow adds a specific problem on metal: as a slab of snow slides, it can catch and bend panel edges, tear off gutters and shear the fasteners at the eave. A building leaking in several places at once usually has worn-out fasteners rather than a worn-out roof, which makes it a repair and coating job rather than a replacement.
More detail is on our metal roof repair and metal roof coatings pages.
Areas We Serve Around Portage
We cover Portage, Portage Township and the communities along the Front, including Cassandra, Lilly, Wilmore, Summerhill, South Fork, Ehrenfeld, Beaverdale, Sidman, Cresson and Gallitzin. Portage is a straightforward run from Johnstown, and we work across the rest of Cambria County and east toward Altoona.
Free Roof Inspections in Portage
We provide free roof inspections on homes, commercial buildings, farm buildings and industrial units throughout Portage and eastern Cambria County.
An inspection tells you what condition the roof is genuinely in, where water is getting in if it is leaking, and whether the roof can be repaired or coated rather than replaced. On a house with a history of ice dams we look at the attic as well as the roof, because that is usually where the answer is. You get a written report with photographs and a price based on what we found.
If a ceiling stain appeared last winter, fall is the sensible time to deal with it.
Call 814-952-2469 or get in touch.
Your Local Portage Roofing Company
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Portage Roofing FAQs
Why does my roof leak during a thaw but not when it rains?
Because it is almost certainly an ice dam rather than a hole. Rain runs off a roof in seconds. Meltwater held behind a ridge of ice sits there for hours and works its way up under the shingles, where nothing is designed to stop it. A roof that is watertight against rain can leak badly in a thaw, and the fix is usually in the attic rather than on the roof.
Will clearing my gutters stop ice dams?
It helps, and you should do it, but it will not stop them. The dam forms on the cold overhang whether or not the gutter is clear. Clear gutters just mean the water that does get past has somewhere to go. The dam itself is caused by heat escaping into the attic, so that is what has to change.
Should I get heated cables put in the gutters?
They work, in the sense that they melt a channel through the ice so water can drain tonight. They do not address why the ice is forming, and they cost money to run all winter. They make sense on a roof where sealing and ventilating the attic is genuinely impractical, for example a complex roof over a finished cathedral ceiling. They are the last option rather than the first.
Can my roof be coated instead of replaced?
Often, provided the deck and structure are sound and the insulation is dry. That last point matters more here than most places, because a roof that has been letting meltwater in for several winters may have wet insulation that has to be dealt with before anything goes over the top. Where a Conklin restoration system is suitable, it carries a 20-year non-prorated manufacturer warranty, with the option to renew for a further 20 years, subject to the system installed and its renewal requirements. Lester’s Roofing & Carpentry also provides its own 3-year contractor workmanship warranty. More on why roofs leak after snow.