We repair asphalt shingle roofs on homes around Madison, and most of that work turns out smaller than the homeowner feared. A few courses lifted by wind. Granules washing into the gutter. A stain on a bedroom ceiling that traces back to one nail pop two feet up the slope. Not every problem calls for a full replacement, and we will say so plainly when yours does not. A repair has one job: stop the water and keep the rest of the system doing what it was built to do.
Shingles fail in ways that are hard to see from the ground. Flashing pulls back from a chimney or a sidewall, and the leak shows up in a room nowhere near it. Valleys wear early because everything on the roof drains through them. The median home here was built in 1979, so plenty of these roofs carry the marks of more than one set of hands, and old repairs hide new problems. We read the whole slope before we touch the spot that is leaking.
Getting a repair to hold comes down to detail work. Matching the existing material, setting the flashing so it sheds instead of collects, and pulling up a soft deck even when the shingles above it look sound. A patch that survives one season and opens up the next has not fixed anything. We would rather find the real source of the moisture, deal with any structural damage under it, and leave you a roof that does not need us again for a long time. Call for a free estimate.
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TPO is a single ply membrane, usually 45 or 60 mil, heat welded at the seams and run over polyiso insulation on flat and low slope roofs. We see it on commercial buildings and on residential additions with flat sections. What fails is rarely the field sheet. It is the seams, the pipe boots and the flashing at parapet walls, where water finds a gap and sits.
Standing seam panels, typically 24 gauge steel with a Kynar finish, lock together at raised ribs that keep fasteners off the water plane. Exposed fastener panels are cheaper to install and the neoprene washers dry out and shrink in about fifteen years. Panels move as they heat and cool, so clips have to allow that travel. Pinned panels oil can and tear at the fastener holes.
Hail bruises asphalt shingles: the impact fractures the mat and knocks granules loose, and the bare spot degrades from there. Fresh hits look like dark circles with soft centers. Damage often shows on soft metals first, so we check gutters, vents and flashing for dents before we ever get on the shingles. A roof can look fine from the driveway and still be finished.
Repair means lifting the courses above the damaged shingle, pulling the nails, sliding the new one in and re-nailing through the original pattern. Sealant strips need warmth to bond, so cold weather work gets hand sealed. Matching matters: shingles weather and fade, and a discontinued line rarely blends. We check the decking underneath, because a soft spot means water has been getting through for a while.
Most of the residential roofs we install are asphalt shingles, usually architectural laminate rather than the older three tab. Metal has a place too: standing seam panels over a porch, a low pitch dormer, an addition that keeps dumping ice into a valley. On commercial property the roofing is usually flat or close to it, which means single ply membrane or modified bitumen instead of anything that sheds water by pitch alone. We work on all of it across Madison, Fitchburg, Middleton and Sun Prairie. Same materials, same crews.
Materials matter less than people expect. A roof is a system, and the parts that fail first are rarely the shingles. Flashing at chimneys, walls and valleys does the hardest work up there and gets the least attention. Underlayment matters. So does ventilation, since a hot deck cooks a covering from underneath and shortens the life of whatever sits on top of it. When we spec a replacement we spec the whole assembly, deck to ridge, because that is what keeps water out and keeps moisture from moving through the structure.
The median home here was built in 1979, so much of what we open up is a second or third covering over an original deck. That changes the answer. Sometimes it is a straight tear off and replacement in the same material. Sometimes there is soft sheathing or structural repair to handle before anything new goes down. And sometimes a flashing repair is the whole job, and the roof has years of performance left in it. We would rather say that than sell a replacement the building does not need. Call for a free estimate.
Most of the residential roofs we work on sit on houses built around 1979, the median build year here, and they show it. An older layer of shingles left under the last one. Step flashing that was caulked instead of replaced. We do full tear-offs on those homes, and single-plane replacements where the damage stays on one face. With the median house here around $346,900, the roof is the part of the building that keeps the rest of it dry.
Repair work runs smaller, and it is most of what comes in. Lifted tabs along a rake. Nail pops. A vent boot that split and let water track down a rafter for months before anyone saw the stain on a ceiling. We open enough of the roof to find where the moisture actually enters, replace the flashing or the boot, and tie the new shingles back into the existing courses so the repair sits flat instead of standing proud.
Commercial jobs look different. Flat and low-slope systems on smaller buildings: membrane seams, interior drains, the curbs around rooftop units. We patch what still has service life in it, re-cover what does not, and write down what was done so the next repair does not start from guesswork. Metal roofs usually come to us for fastener and panel work rather than replacement. A property in Fitchburg gets the same crew and the same scope as one in town.