Across the Susquehanna from the state capital, Lemoyne's 1.6 square miles hold attached houses, two-unit buildings and many homes built in 1939 or earlier. Our crew repairs and replaces roofs on all three.
Lemoyne has about 1.6 square miles of land and roughly 4,742 people. It sits about 1 miles southwest of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17043.
No completed roof in Lemoyne is logged in our job records yet.
Of Lemoyne's 2441 homes, 1064 went up in 1939 or earlier. A roof on one of those usually sits on boards rather than plywood, sometimes spaced with gaps for the wood shingles they first carried, over rafters that can sag. Some carry asphalt laid over an older layer. Some still wear slate, and on those we tell you which pieces can be reset and where the slate is past saving before any comes off. Of those 2441 homes, 633 are attached to a neighbor and 462 are in two-unit buildings, so many Lemoyne roofs end at a party wall or cover two households at once.
Winter in Lemoyne brings snow that piles up on roofs and repeated freezing and thawing. Over an attic with thin insulation, heat from the rooms melts that snow, and the water refreezes at the cold eaves into an ice dam that pushes meltwater under the shingles. Chimneys are another weak point: 538 homes here heat with fuel oil and 77 with wood, which usually puts a chimney on the roof, and the flashing around one is a common place for freeze and thaw to pry a joint open. Summers are humid, so moss and algae settle on shaded slopes, and on a house with a basement, a gutter that spills at the foundation can send roof water downstairs.
Lemoyne Borough issues its building permits through a third-party building code official, and an applicant may choose any third-party agency certified and registered with the Commonwealth for plan review and inspections. Plan review and inspection fees are paid to that agency directly and are not part of the Borough's fees. The line matters too: Lemoyne borders Wormleysburg, Camp Hill, New Cumberland, Lower Allen and Harrisburg, so a house a short walk from yours may answer to another municipality's rules.
Lemoyne sits on the west bank of the Susquehanna River at about 384 feet above sea level, directly across the river from the state capital on the eastern edge of Cumberland County. The borough is served by Interstate 83 and U.S.
On houses this old in Lemoyne the deck is usually solid boards, not plywood, and boards shift: gaps open, nails work loose, and a shingle nailed over a gap holds on to nothing. Chimneys and wall joints often still carry their original step and counter-flashing, which is where many leaks really start while the shingles look fine. Two or three roofs piled on one another are common on streets like these; every extra layer hides the deck, adds weight and voids most manufacturer warranties. Any original slate or tile on the house calls for a different plan from an asphalt tear-off.
The Census Bureau counts 2,441 homes in Lemoyne, with a median year built of 1949. 1,064 of them (44%) went up before 1940 — 9th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 255 (10%) in 2000 or later. More of today's homes date from before 1940 than from any decade since. (Cumberland County as a whole: 15% before 1940.)
A roof's first layer has a service life of about 20 years, according to HUD's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide. By that measure, 90% of Lemoyne's homes — the 2,186 built before 2000 — are past their first roof, and 79% (1,919 homes) go back before 1970, two roof lives and more. First replacements are arriving on the 81 homes built in the 2000s, while the 174 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.
42% of homes in Lemoyne are single-family detached houses (1,027) and 26% attached ones such as townhouses (633). 699 homes (29%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 82 (3%) in buildings of ten units or more, where a resident rarely gets to choose the roofer. 55% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, 45% 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 | 1,064 | 44% | |
| 1940s | 176 | 7% | |
| 1950s | 384 | 16% | |
| 1960s | 295 | 12% | |
| 1970s | 157 | 6% | |
| 1980s | 41 | 2% | |
| 1990s | 69 | 3% | |
| 2000s | 81 | 3% | |
| 2010s | 174 | 7% | |
| 2020 or later | 0 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 2,441 homes, 2,420 occupied. Survey estimates.
From 2016 through 2025, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center recorded 3 reports of hail of 1 inch or more within 5 miles of Lemoyne’s center, all on one storm day. 1 of them was 1.75 inches or larger. The largest, 1.75 inches, came on June 3, 2023, about 1.5 miles northeast of the center. Counts follow people as much as storms, since every report is a spotter’s or a resident’s.
| Latest reports | Size | From center |
|---|---|---|
| June 3, 2023 | 1 inch | 2.7 mi NE |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.75 inches | 1.5 mi NE |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.25 inches | 2.9 mi NE |
If one of those storms crossed your street and nobody has been on the roof since, a storm inspection photographs what it did.
Nothing Lemoyne publishes says whether a like-for-like re-roof needs a permit. We call Lemoyne Borough (717-737-6843) before the job and pull whatever is required.
Lemoyne does not publish the code edition it currently enforces. We confirm the edition with the building department before we write the scope.
We reach the permit desk at 717-737-6843. The building official is Amanda Seibert, Code Enforcement Officer. 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.
Lemoyne borders Wormleysburg, Camp Hill, New Cumberland, Lower Allen and Harrisburg. Our pages for them:
Also in Cumberland County:
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lemoyne | Not published | Not published | 1949 |
| Wormleysburg | Not published | Not published | 1969 |
| Camp Hill | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| New Cumberland | Yes | Not published | 1953 |
| Lower Allen | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1968 |
| Harrisburg | Yes | Not published | 1947 |
| Boiling Springs | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1986 |
Every Cumberland County city we cover, side by side →
The Storm Prediction Center's reports for June 3, 2023 put hail of 1.0, 1.25 and 1.75 inches northeast of Lemoyne, the largest 1.5 miles from the borough. Stones that size can bruise or crack asphalt shingles and dent metal vents, and the marks can be hard to spot from the yard, so a roof that was on the house that day is worth a close look.
Usually, yes. Lemoyne has 633 homes attached to a neighbor, and one owner's part of a shared roofline can be replaced on its own. The care goes into the party wall, where the new roofing has to be tied and flashed into the older roof next door so water stays out of the joint. If the neighbor's side is worn, knowing that before work starts helps both houses.
Nothing published settles it for Lemoyne, so Lemoyne Borough gets the question before work starts and any permit it wants is pulled by us.
Median year built 1949, by the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates. Of 2,441 homes, 2,186 were built before 2000 and 1,064 before 1940, so most roofs in Lemoyne are not the first one the house has had.
The last report near Lemoyne of hail 1 inch or bigger came on June 3, 2023; NOAA's records hold 3 of them within 5 miles since 2016.
The building official is Amanda Seibert, Code Enforcement Officer. We reach the permit desk at 717-737-6843.
Not yet: no completed roof in Lemoyne 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: lemoynepa.com · lemoynepa.com · lemoynepa.com · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · www2.census.gov · www2.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · en.wikipedia.org · www2.census.gov · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.