The Suburb Where Everybody’s Roof Ages At Once

Three Building Eras, Three Sets Of Problems

The oldest residential streets near the Deerfield Road and Waukegan Road crossing carry a mix of prewar houses and the first postwar wave. Then come the fifties and sixties ranches and split levels, which are the backbone of the town. Then the seventies and eighties two-stories out toward the subdivisions, bigger footprints with more complicated rooflines, several of which have front-facing gables and bay projections that create valleys where the water concentrates.

The splits are their own animal. A split level roof is really two roofs at different heights with a wall between them, and the flashing where the upper roof meets that wall is where a huge share of Deerfield leaks live. Water runs down the upper slope, hits the junction, and if the step flashing behind the siding is not right it goes into the wall rather than onto the lower roof. Homeowners chase that leak for years because the stain shows up in a room nowhere near where the water got in.

The seventies and eighties houses are hitting their second or third roof now, and what we find under them is usually thin builder-grade sheathing, minimal ventilation, and a nail pattern from whoever did the last one. We photograph the deck once the tear-off is done so you see it before it gets covered again, and deck replacement is priced per sheet up front so there is nothing to negotiate mid-job.

Ice Dams Are The Local Specialty

If you have lived in Deerfield through a real winter you know the icicle line along the gutter. That is not decoration, it is a warning. Heat escaping the attic melts the snowpack from underneath, the meltwater runs down to the eave where the roof overhangs cold air, and it freezes into a ridge of ice. Everything behind that ridge becomes standing water on a surface designed to shed water downhill, so it works its way under the shingles and into the house.

The houses here are especially prone to it because of when they were built. Sixties and seventies attics were insulated to a standard nobody would accept now, and the insulation often got pushed into the soffit and blocked whatever intake ventilation existed. So on a replacement we run ice and water shield well past the code minimum at every eave and valley, open real intake at the soffit, and put a continuous vent on the ridge so the deck stays cold enough that the snow on it stops melting from below. That combination is what actually stops the problem. Heat cable strung along the gutter is a symptom treatment and we will tell you so.

The Work We Do Most In Deerfield

• Shingle roof replacement with full tear-off, upgraded ice and water shield and ventilation corrected while the deck is open.
• Shingle roof repair at the split-level wall junctions where step flashing failed rather than the shingles.
• Gutter replacement and repair, sized properly and pitched so ice load has somewhere to go.
• Storm damage repair plus insurance claim documentation when hail or straight-line wind comes through the block.
• Commercial roofing on the office buildings, medical suites and retail along Deerfield Road and Lake Cook Road.

The Office Side Of Town

Deerfield carries more corporate square footage than a town this size normally would, and those buildings sit under flat membrane rather than shingles. Different trade, same crew philosophy. We inspect seams, drains, curb flashing around rooftop mechanical units and the pitch pockets that quietly dry out and open up. Property managers get photographs and a written condition report they can forward without explaining it, and work gets scheduled around tenant hours. Small suites and medical offices get the same treatment as the big buildings.

Storm Weeks And Door-Knockers

When hail or straight-line wind crosses a Deerfield subdivision, out-of-state trucks appear within days. Our advice is the same every time. Get the roof looked at within two weeks even if nothing is leaking, because bruised shingle mat that seems fine in July turns into a February leak. Keep the inspection photographs whether or not you file anything. And do not sign with anybody before a local company has been on the same roof. We inspect and photograph the way an adjuster expects, we tell you honestly if the damage does not clear your deductible, and if it does we meet the adjuster up there.

Where We Come From And How We Schedule

The shop is in Alsip, south of the city, which makes Deerfield a real drive. We say so instead of implying we are around the corner. North county work runs on scheduled days with addresses grouped together, and the drive never appears on your invoice. Active leaks get triaged ahead of scheduled work, tarped and patched first. Angelo Ristich learned the trade from his father Frank and still supervises jobs personally. Straightforward roofs get a real number off satellite measurements while you are on the phone, we help with financing pre-approval, and we are BBB A+ with a HomeAdvisor Elite Service award, licensed and insured in Illinois. Recent work is in the gallery.