Meramec Roofing

Roofing contractors in Greater St. Louis

Brick houses, gutters built into the roof itself, and rooflines you will not find in a catalog. An estimate written for a suburban ranch does not survive contact with a block here.

The box gutter question

On a lot of houses here the gutter is not hung off the edge of the roof, it is built into it. That changes what a re-roof even means. The lining has to be rebuilt as part of the work or it does not get done at all, and a quote that treats the roof and the gutter as two separate jobs has usually priced the first one. Ask about the box gutters before you ask about anything else.

The second local question is the chimney. Counterflashing cut into the brick takes longer to do properly than metal surface-mounted over it, and it is the difference between a chimney that stays dry and one that marks the plaster underneath every spring. Reused counterflashing is a saving that shows up as a stain.

The rest is the usual: a price per sheet for decking, a stated count, and a straight answer about who covers the labor if something fails.

St. Louis put the gutter inside the roof. That is where it goes, and the yard is the one place you cannot see it from. Six of them, numbered. Five are places where the roof meets something else.
Garage Point 1: ridge caps 1 Ridge caps: first to fatigue in the swings Point 2: the field of the roof 2 The field: thaw cycles and age Point 3: valleys 3 in the valleys Point 4: flashing 4 a lower roof meets a wall Point 5: vent boot 5 Vent boot Point 6: eaves and gutters 6 Eaves: refreeze and plugged gutters back water up
  1. 1 Ridge caps. First to fatigue in a climate that swings hard in both directions.
  2. 2 The field. Thaw cycles work the covering harder than the calendar suggests.
  3. 3 Valleys. Litter holds water against the covering exactly where it should be leaving.
  4. 4 Flashing. The chimney, and where a lower roof runs into a brick wall.
  5. 5 The vent boot. A rubber part with a life measured in years, not decades.
  6. 6 Eaves and gutters. Refreezing and a plugged box gutter back water up under the edge.

The work

Why roofs fail in this region

The metro built out in waves, so whole streets reach the end of a covering within a season or two of each other. A winter that oscillates around freezing works every fastener and joint, a humid July cooks the attics that cannot breathe, and the older suburbs add their own chapter: cornice gutters, brick counterflashing, a canopy that never stops dropping things. Most of what gets reported here is predictable.

Cities