Split-Levels, Skylights And Storm Work Along 159th

Roof Shapes That Cost People Money

Oak Forest grew up later than the bungalow towns closer to the city. Most of what we work on here went up between about 1958 and 1980, when builders were putting up split-levels, raised ranches and tri-levels on the subdivisions filling in around 159th Street and Central Avenue. Those designs look plain, but they are the most complicated roofs in the south suburbs. A split-level has two roof planes at different heights meeting at a wall, and that wall-to-roof junction is where the water goes. Get the kick-out flashing wrong at the bottom of that run and you rot the wall sheathing behind the siding for a decade before anybody notices a soft spot.

The other thing this era gave us is the low-slope tie-in. Family room additions, breezeways and attached garages from the seventies frequently carry a shallow pitch that asphalt shingles were never rated for. Shingles need a certain slope to shed water, and below that number they act like a rain gutter with seams. When we find one, we say so and we quote it as a proper low-slope system rather than another round of shingles that will fail in six years. That is a flat roof replacement conversation, sometimes a TPO installation depending on the deck and the exposure.

Then there are skylights. Oak Forest homes have a lot of them, especially the kitchens and family rooms remodeled in the eighties and nineties. Old curb-mounted units with site-built flashing and a bead of caulk are the single most common leak we chase in this town. During a tear-off we either reflash the unit correctly with a real head and step assembly or we replace it, and we tell you which one it needs before we start rather than after we have the roof open.

What We Do Most In Oak Forest

• Shingle roof replacement on split-levels and tri-levels with wall flashing and kick-outs rebuilt to current practice.
• Shingle roof repair and skylight reflashing on the eighties-era units that stopped sealing.
• Wind damage repair, because the open subdivisions off Central and Ridgeland catch straight-line gusts with nothing to slow them down.
• Hail damage repair plus insurance claim work when a cell walks the 159th corridor and half the block gets hit.
• Gutter replacement sized for long ranch runs, where the original five-inch aluminum has been overwhelmed for twenty years.

Oak Forest also has real commercial and institutional stock. The medical buildings, the strip centers along Cicero, the churches and the townhome associations off 167th all sit under flat membranes and shared roofs. We handle those as commercial roofing, townhome roof repair and multi-family roofing jobs, and association boards get photo reports they can put in front of their members without a translator.

Wind Is The Local Enemy

The blocks west of Ridgeland and out toward the forest preserve land are open. There is no dense grid of tall houses breaking up the wind the way there is in Evergreen Park or Chicago Ridge, so a seventy mile an hour straight-line gust hits an Oak Forest roof at full strength. What we see afterward is a pattern: the windward slope loses tabs along the rake edge first, then the wind gets under a course and peels a strip toward the ridge. If the starter course was skimped or the nails were high, that strip runs long.

The fix is not glamorous. Correct nail placement in the nailing zone, six nails per shingle in high-wind exposures, a real starter strip at eaves and rakes instead of cut-up three-tabs, and ridge caps that are rated for the same wind speed as the field. Those details cost a little more in labor and nothing in drama, and they are the difference between a roof that shrugs off a June storm and a roof that ends up on your neighbor’s lawn.

Trees, Debris And The Valleys

Mature silver maples and oaks shade a lot of these streets, and by November the valleys and gutters are packed. A loaded valley holds water against the shingles instead of letting it run, and in a freeze that water backs up under the courses. We clear valleys as part of any inspection and we recommend open metal valleys on the roofs sitting under heavy canopy, because metal sheds debris where a closed-cut valley traps it. Same logic drives our gutter installation recommendations here: larger downspouts and guards make sense on a tree-shaded Oak Forest lot in a way they do not on an open block.

Reading A Roof That Is Twenty-Five Years Old

Age alone does not decide it. We have pulled thirty-year-old roofs off north-facing slopes that still had life, and we have condemned fifteen-year-old roofs that were nailed high and installed over a hot, unvented attic. What matters is what the material looks like up close and what the attic side shows. We get into the attic on every inspection here because daylight through the deck, rusted nail tips and damp sheathing tell you more than the shingles do. Then you get a straight answer about whether to spend money now or plan for it in two seasons.

Who Actually Shows Up

Guardian Roofing Systems has been running out of Alsip since 2013. Angelo Ristich took the company over from his father Frank and still supervises the jobs personally, so the person who priced your roof is the person standing on it. Oak Forest is about fifteen minutes down the road, which means we can come back for a punch-list item without turning it into a scheduling negotiation. We hold an A+ BBB rating and the HomeAdvisor Elite Service award, we are licensed and insured in Illinois, and we can usually price a roof off satellite measurements while you are still on the phone. Financing pre-approval help is available if you need it. Recent jobs are in the gallery, and the contact page comes straight to us.