Our crew roofs the homes of Unincorporated Cumberland County, where the median house was built in 1938 in West Fairview and in 1986 in Boiling Springs, so no two roofs start alike.
We cover the parts of Cumberland County outside any city here. The Census publishes no separate population or housing count for that remainder; the county-wide figures further down include every municipality as well.
No completed roof in Unincorporated Cumberland County is logged in our job records yet.
Unincorporated Cumberland County is every address outside a borough line, and its houses do not share an age. The median year built is 1938 in West Fairview, 1968 in Lower Allen, 1969 in Enola, 1979 in Schlusser and 1986 in Boiling Springs. A 1938 house may carry board decking, slate, or several shingle layers stacked over each other. A 1980s house is more likely to have sheet decking that handles a tear-off well. Those are two different jobs, and they are priced differently.
Winter sets the wear here. Snow piles on the roof, melts over the warm spots of the attic and refreezes at the eaves, which is how ice dams form. Humid summers add mildew, moss and roof algae on shaded slopes, so the north side of a tree-lined lot often ages first.
Boroughs in the county keep their own permit desks, and they do not all answer the re-roof question the same way. An address outside any borough needs its municipality named before anyone can say what paperwork applies. When you ask for a visit, we start by finding out what lies under your shingles, whether plank, plywood or slate, and the written scope follows from that.
For Cumberland County as a whole — every city in it as well as the unincorporated land — the Census Bureau counts 111,278 homes, with a median year built of 1978. 17,219 of them (15%) went up before 1940 and 26,683 (24%) in 2000 or later. More of today's homes date from before 1940 than from any decade since.
The Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development puts the service life of a roof's first layer at about 20 years. By that measure, 76% of Cumberland County's homes — the 84,595 built before 2000 — are past their first roof, and the 44,363 built before 1970 (40%) are usually on a third covering or later. First replacements are arriving on the 13,563 homes built in the 2000s, while the 13,120 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.
60% of homes in Cumberland County are single-family detached houses (66,917) and 16% attached ones such as townhouses (17,825). 12,455 homes (11%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 8,859 (8%) in buildings of ten units or more, where the roof is usually a landlord's or an association's decision. The count also takes in 5,161 mobile homes, which are a different kind of roof job. 71% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, 29% rented. When we look at houses like these, our 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 | 17,219 | 15% | |
| 1940s | 5,475 | 5% | |
| 1950s | 10,264 | 9% | |
| 1960s | 11,405 | 10% | |
| 1970s | 14,369 | 13% | |
| 1980s | 13,835 | 12% | |
| 1990s | 12,028 | 11% | |
| 2000s | 13,563 | 12% | |
| 2010s | 10,879 | 10% | |
| 2020 or later | 2,241 | 2% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 111,278 homes, 106,427 occupied. Survey estimates.
Between 2016 and 2025 there were 3 reports of 1-inch-plus hail in Cumberland County as a whole in the records of NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, on 2 separate days. None was 1.75 inches or larger. The largest, 1 inch, came on August 4, 2023. These are reports, not a full record: they come from spotters and the public, so busier areas log more.
Hail damage rarely shows from the ground; a storm inspection photographs each slope so you know either way.
Permits and inspections for Unincorporated Cumberland County run through the municipality that enforces Pennsylvania's Uniform Construction Code there, or through a third-party agency or the Department of Labor and Industry where it does not. Before a re-roof we ask the office that covers the address whether a permit is needed, and where one is, we pull it.
The code that applies in Unincorporated Cumberland County is Pennsylvania's Uniform Construction Code, which adopts the 2021 International Residential Code for the whole state (34 Pa. Code 403.21). We build to it and to the manufacturer's instructions.
What goes into a new roof, layer by layerDesign wind here is set by location, not one figure for the whole area: 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. What it does to a roof is in the roofing code guide.
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unincorporated Cumberland County | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | — |
| Boiling Springs | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1986 |
| Camp Hill | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| Carlisle | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| 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 →
Yes. Snow melts over the warm spots of the attic and refreezes at the eaves. Heat escaping into the attic is the usual cause, so insulation and ventilation matter as much as the shingles.
The county median year built is 1978, and 17219 homes date to 1939 or earlier. Older houses often hide board decking or extra layers, while newer ones are quicker to strip. The deck under the shingles sets the real scope.
Permits and inspections for Unincorporated Cumberland County run through the municipality that enforces Pennsylvania's Uniform Construction Code there, or through a third-party agency or the Department of Labor and Industry where it does not. Before a re-roof we ask the office that covers the address whether a permit is needed, and where one is, we pull it.
Not yet: no completed roof in Unincorporated Cumberland County 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: data.census.gov · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.