We inspect and re-roof houses in Carlisle, a borough laid out in 1751 where 40% of homes were built before 1940 and many roofs sit over very old framing.
Carlisle has about 5.5 square miles of land and roughly 21,852 people. It sits about 17 miles west of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17013.
No completed roof in Carlisle is logged in our job records yet.
John Armstrong Sr., a surveyor for the Penn family, laid out Carlisle in 1751, and the old core still holds buildings from the 1700s, such as the First Presbyterian Church, completed in 1770. Of the borough's 9,819 housing units, 3,902 were built in 1939 or earlier. Roofs on houses that old often sit over board decking and original framing, and some still carry slate. If yours stands inside the Carlisle Historic District, ask the borough before choosing a material that changes how the roof looks from the street.
The borough sits on flat valley ground at about 479 feet in the Cumberland Valley, south of Conodoguinet Creek, with Letort Spring Run running north through its eastern side. Temperatures drop below freezing on about 119 days a year, so roofs here carry snow, grow ice dams at the eaves and go through freeze-thaw cycles. Ice dams form where attic heat melts snow that refreezes at the edge, so insulation and ventilation matter as much as the shingles. Summers are humid, and moss and roof algae show up on shaded slopes.
Renter-occupied homes are 51.3% (about 51%) of occupied homes in Carlisle, and 2,615 homes are attached one-unit houses, so many roofs meet a neighbor's at a party wall where flashing has to be right. Permits come from the Codes Office of the borough's Sustainable Community and Economic Planning Department, open Monday to Friday, 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM. The application asks for workers' compensation information for each contractor named on it, and the borough does not check contractor registration for one- and two-family homes, so look up whoever you hire in the Attorney General's registration lookup. Before a figure goes in writing, we check the old boards from the attic.
The postwar housing in Carlisle is mostly simple to roof, which is why it gets done badly so often. Decking is usually 1x6 boards or early plywood, still sound but worth walking rather than assuming. The recurring problems are the low-slope sections — porch roofs, carport tie-ins, the flat bit over an addition — where a shingle was installed below its rated pitch and has been failing quietly ever since. Attic ventilation on houses of this era is also routinely short of what current shingle warranties require, and under-venting cooks a roof from underneath. We measure intake against exhaust before we quote rather than just nailing on a ridge vent and calling it solved.
By the Census Bureau's estimate there are 9,819 homes in Carlisle, with a median year built of 1953. 3,902 of them (40%) went up before 1940 — 13th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 865 (9%) in 2000 or later. More of today's homes date from before 1940 than from any decade since. On the pre-1940 share, Carlisle sits above Cumberland County's 15%.
About 20 years is the service life that HUD's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide gives for a roof's first layer. On that yardstick the 8,954 homes in Carlisle built before 2000 (91%) have outlived at least one roof, and 66% (6,480 homes) go back before 1970, two roof lives and more. First replacements are arriving on the 641 homes built in the 2000s, while the 224 built since 2010 are mostly still on the roof they were built with. On houses that old, the question worth asking is how many layers are up there: a roof laid over an old one hides the deck.
36% of homes in Carlisle are single-family detached houses (3,509) and 27% attached ones such as townhouses (2,615). 2,741 homes (28%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 891 (9%) in buildings of ten units or more, whose roofs are normally an owner's or a board's call rather than a resident's. Owners live in 49% of the 9,223 occupied homes. On a housing mix like this, the work can include full tear-offs on houses past two roof lives, deck and flashing checks on pre-war board sheathing and flat and low-slope sections, which turn up more on attached and multi-unit buildings.
| Built | Homes | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1940 | 3,902 | 40% | |
| 1940s | 780 | 8% | |
| 1950s | 828 | 8% | |
| 1960s | 970 | 10% | |
| 1970s | 1,180 | 12% | |
| 1980s | 767 | 8% | |
| 1990s | 527 | 5% | |
| 2000s | 641 | 7% | |
| 2010s | 207 | 2% | |
| 2020 or later | 17 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 9,819 homes, 9,223 occupied. Survey estimates.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center logged no reports of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of Carlisle’s center from 2016 through 2025. That is a gap in the reports rather than proof that no hail fell: reports come from spotters and the public.
Carlisle publishes no rule either way on a like-for-like re-roof, so we ask the Carlisle Borough Sustainable Community and Economic Planning Department before we start and pull whatever it wants.
Carlisle does not publish the code edition it currently enforces. We confirm the edition with the building department before we write the scope.
The building official is Malcolm Marcewicz, Chief Code Enforcement Officer and Building Code Official. We check the department’s own page for its current permit rules before a job.
Wind design is looked up by address across the Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pennsylvania metro: we build to the design wind speed set for the address; Township of Upper Allen’s published table gives 90 mph, and the building department can say which figure applies to a given address. See the roofing code guide for what it governs.
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carlisle | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| Boiling Springs | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1986 |
| Camp Hill | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| Unincorporated Cumberland County | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | — |
| Enola | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1969 |
| Lemoyne | Not published | Not published | 1949 |
| Lower Allen | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1968 |
Every Cumberland County city we cover, side by side →
HUD's rehabilitation inspection guide puts roof life at 20 years in Pennsylvania. With 3,902 Carlisle homes built in 1939 or earlier, many roofs have been replaced more than once, so the decking and framing underneath deserve a look before you set a date.
Carlisle sees temperatures below freezing on about 119 days a year. Heat escaping into the attic melts snow on the roof, and the meltwater refreezes at the cold eaves. Better attic insulation, air sealing and ventilation address the cause.
Carlisle publishes no rule on it. We ask the Carlisle Borough Sustainable Community and Economic Planning Department first and pull whatever it requires.
Median year built 1953, by the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates. Of 9,819 homes, 8,954 were built before 2000 and 3,902 before 1940, so most roofs in Carlisle are not the first one the house has had.
The building official is Malcolm Marcewicz, Chief Code Enforcement Officer and Building Code Official.
It can. Carlisle has Carlisle Historic District. Inside a designated district, changing a visible roof material or color can need preservation review before the permit is issued. Like-for-like replacement usually raises fewer questions, but we check before quoting.
Not yet: no completed roof in Carlisle is in our job records, so this page shows no job count.
Researched 2026-11-09; housing, Census ACS 2020–2024; hail, NOAA SPC. Sources: www.carlislepa.org · www.carlislepa.org · www.carlislepa.org · www.carlislepa.org · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · www2.census.gov · www2.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.