Hummelstown was established in 1762 as Fredrickstown, and Swatara Creek forms its northern and western edge. We fix leaks and put on new roofs across the borough, on houses built before 1940 and ones from the 2010s, and the first visit is free.
Hummelstown has about 1.2 square miles of land and roughly 4,527 people. It sits about 9 miles east of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17036.
No completed roof in Hummelstown is logged in our job records yet.
The Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey estimates that 402 Hummelstown homes were built in 1939 or earlier, 356 in the 1940s and 358 in the 1960s, while 250 went up between 2010 and 2019. That leaves 17% of the borough's homes built before 1940 and another 17% built in 2000 or later. On the older houses the shingles often sit on boards rather than plywood or OSB sheets, and those boards can carry splits, gaps and nail holes from earlier roofs. On a house built in the 1940s or earlier, we judge the deck board by board before any new shingle goes on.
Hummelstown lies 9 miles east of downtown Harrisburg. The National Weather Service's Harrisburg climate summary uses 1991-2020 normals of 101.1 days a year with a low at or below 32F and 18.7 days a year with a high at or below 32F. A record 21-inch blizzard hit the borough in 2010. Snow that lies on a roof melts first where attic heat reaches the deck and freezes again at the cold eaves. That ridge of ice is an ice dam. It backs water up under the shingles, so the cure starts in the attic with insulation, air sealing and air moving under the deck.
Fuel oil still heats 606 of the 2288 occupied homes in Hummelstown. An oil burner usually vents up a chimney, so chimney flashing comes up on many re-roofs in the borough. Local brownstone, quarried from 1867 to 1929, was used to build the historical society and a Main Street church. Wherever a roof meets stone or brick, the counterflashing should be set into a mortar joint, not just caulked to the face. The borough posts its building permit application on its codes and zoning page.
Hummelstown has many older homes, and a large number were built in the earlier decades of the 1900s.
Swatara Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River, forms the northern and western edge of Hummelstown, and Hurricane Agnes knocked out two key bridges in the borough.
Postwar houses in Hummelstown are plain to roof, which is exactly why so many get roofed carelessly. Expect 1x6 board decking or early plywood: usually sound, but it should be walked, not assumed. The weak spots are the shallow pitches — a porch roof, the join to a carport, the flat section over an addition — where shingles went on below their rated slope and have leaked slowly for years. Attics from this era rarely have the ventilation today's shingle warranties ask for, and a hot, under-vented attic ages a roof from below, so intake and exhaust get measured before the quote.
Hummelstown has 2,308 homes in the Census Bureau's count and a median year built of 1965. 402 of them (17%) went up before 1940 — 25th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 393 (17%) in 2000 or later. More of today's homes date from before 1940 than from any decade since. Across Dauphin County the pre-1940 share is 19%, so Hummelstown sits below it.
About 20 years is the service life that HUD's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide gives for a roof's first layer. That puts 1,915 homes in Hummelstown, the 83% built before 2000, past at least one full roof life, and 58% (1,341 homes) go back before 1970, two roof lives and more. Homes from the 2000s (143 in Hummelstown) are reaching their first replacement, while the 250 built since 2010 are mostly still on the roof they were built with. Older houses are where a second layer laid over the first turns up, and that layer is what hides soft decking.
56% of homes in Hummelstown are single-family detached houses (1,285) and 7% attached ones such as townhouses (164). 432 homes (19%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 427 (19%) in buildings of ten units or more, where a resident rarely gets to choose the roofer. 54% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, 46% rented. With houses like these, the jobs 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 | 402 | 17% | |
| 1940s | 356 | 15% | |
| 1950s | 225 | 10% | |
| 1960s | 358 | 16% | |
| 1970s | 250 | 11% | |
| 1980s | 153 | 7% | |
| 1990s | 171 | 7% | |
| 2000s | 143 | 6% | |
| 2010s | 250 | 11% | |
| 2020 or later | 0 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 2,308 homes, 2,288 occupied. Survey estimates.
From 2016 through 2025, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center recorded 5 reports of hail of 1 inch or more within 5 miles of Hummelstown’s center, spread over 5 storm days. None was 1.75 inches or larger. The largest, 1.25 inches, came on July 6, 2021, about 3.5 miles east of the center. The most recent was 1 inch on June 26, 2023. Counts follow people as much as storms, since every report is a spotter’s or a resident’s.
| Latest reports | Size | From center |
|---|---|---|
| June 26, 2023 | 1 inch | 4 mi E |
| July 6, 2021 | 1.25 inches | 3.5 mi E |
| July 6, 2020 | 1 inch | 4 mi NE |
| June 10, 2020 | 1 inch | 1.6 mi W |
| May 10, 2018 | 1 inch | 4.5 mi NE |
Hail damage rarely shows from the ground; a storm inspection photographs each slope so you know either way.
Hummelstown publishes no rule either way on a like-for-like re-roof, so we ask the building department before we start and pull whatever it wants.
Hummelstown does not publish the code edition it currently enforces. We confirm the edition with the building department before we write the scope.
Hummelstown does not publish a building official’s name, so the permit conversation is with the department itself. We check the department’s own page for its current permit rules before a job.
What goes into a new roof, layer by layerWind 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hummelstown | Not published | Not published | 1965 |
| Colonial Park | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1969 |
| Unincorporated Dauphin County | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | — |
| Elizabethville | Not published | Not published | 1951 |
| Enhaut | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1950 |
| Harrisburg | Yes | Not published | 1947 |
| Hershey | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1970 |
Every Dauphin County city we cover, side by side →
From 2016 to 2025, every hail report of 1 inch or larger that NOAA's Storm Prediction Center logged within 5 miles of Hummelstown came in May, June or July. The most recent was 1.0 inch on June 26, 2023, 4.0 miles to the east. Stones that size can bruise or crack shingles without showing from the ground. After an early-summer storm, have the roof looked at before winter freeze-thaw cycles widen the damage.
The dark streaks are usually algae. Moss is a plant that roots in the shingle grit and holds water. Hummelstown's humid summers feed both, most of all on slopes that get little sun. Algae is mostly a stain, but moss lifts shingle edges and lets water wick underneath. Remove it by hand or with a cleaner made for roofs. Do not use a pressure washer, because it strips the granules.
Nothing published settles it for Hummelstown, so the department gets the question before work starts and any permit it wants is pulled by us.
Median year built 1965, by the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates. Of 2,308 homes, 1,915 were built before 2000 and 402 before 1940, so most roofs in Hummelstown are not the first one the house has had.
Yes. The most recent report of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of Hummelstown's center was 1 inch on June 26, 2023, one of 5 such reports from 2016 through 2025.
Not yet: no completed roof in Hummelstown 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: hummelstown.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · www2.census.gov · www2.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · en.wikipedia.org · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.