Linglestown began in 1765 as Thomas Lingle's crossroads at the foot of Blue Mountain, yet 916 of its 2804 homes were built from 1950 to 1959. Our crew repairs and replaces roofs here, whatever decade the house comes from.
Linglestown has about 3.8 square miles of land and roughly 6,957 people. It sits about 7 miles northeast of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17112.
No completed roof in Linglestown is logged in our job records yet.
Linglestown's houses came in waves. Just 152 date to 1939 or earlier, and after the 1950s building run, the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s added 377, 338 and 403 more. A house from the 1950s often sits on board sheathing rather than plywood, and boards that have held the nails of more than one roof can split or work loose. Houses from later decades usually have sheet decking, though any of them may carry a second layer of shingles laid over the first, which hides the deck until both come off.
From the village square and its roundabouts, the land rises toward Blue Mountain, whose south slope climbs to about 995 feet north of the town center, well above the village itself. Snow piles on these roofs in winter, and freeze-thaw swings turn meltwater to ice at the cold eaves, where an ice dam pushes water back under shingles. An older house with a thinly insulated attic warms its roof deck from below and feeds those dams. Humid summers bring the other trouble: moss and dark algae streaks on shaded slopes, which hold moisture against the shingles.
The way these houses are heated matters to the roof as well. Fuel oil heats 516 homes here and wood heats 37, so plenty of roofs still carry a working chimney, and the flashing where chimney meets shingle can open as the masonry and the roof shift through freeze-thaw winters. Storms reach the village too: on June 3, 2023, hail reported at 1.5 inches fell 0.4 miles southeast of Linglestown and 1.3 miles southwest of it. Stones that size can bruise shingles without a mark anyone sees from the yard, and a free look from our crew, up on the slopes themselves, can find those soft spots before winter water does.
Postwar houses in Linglestown 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.
By the Census Bureau's estimate there are 2,804 homes in Linglestown, with a median year built of 1969. 152 of them (5%) went up before 1940 — one of the five lowest pre-1940 shares of the 37 places on this site — and 250 (9%) in 2000 or later. The 1950s were the busiest decade, adding 916 of today's homes (33%). Across Dauphin County the pre-1940 share is 19%, so Linglestown sits below it.
A roof's first layer has a service life of about 20 years, according to HUD's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide. By that measure, 91% of Linglestown's homes — the 2,554 built before 2000 — are past their first roof, and the 1,436 built before 1970 (51%) are usually on a third covering or later. Homes from the 2000s (99 in Linglestown) are reaching their first replacement, while the 151 built since 2010 are mostly still on the roof they were built with. At that age it pays to know whether the last roof was torn off or laid over the one before it, because a second layer hides the deck.
88% of homes in Linglestown are single-family detached houses (2,467) and 8% attached ones such as townhouses (234). 66 homes (2%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings. Owners live in 84% of the 2,768 occupied homes. When we look at houses like these, our work can include full tear-offs on houses past two roof lives.
| Built | Homes | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1940 | 152 | 5% | |
| 1940s | 100 | 4% | |
| 1950s | 916 | 33% | |
| 1960s | 268 | 10% | |
| 1970s | 377 | 13% | |
| 1980s | 338 | 12% | |
| 1990s | 403 | 14% | |
| 2000s | 99 | 4% | |
| 2010s | 151 | 5% | |
| 2020 or later | 0 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 2,804 homes, 2,768 occupied. Survey estimates.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center logged 2 reports of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of Linglestown’s center from 2016 through 2025, all on one day. None was 1.75 inches or larger. The largest, 1.5 inches, came on June 3, 2023, about 0.4 miles southeast of the center. These are reports, not a full record: they come from spotters and the public, so busier areas log more.
If one of those storms crossed your street and nobody has been on the roof since, a storm inspection photographs what it did.
Permits and inspections for Linglestown 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 Linglestown 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. The building department for Linglestown can tell you which figure applies. What it does to a roof is in the roofing code guide.
Linglestown borders Paxtonia. Our pages for them:
Also in Dauphin County:
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linglestown | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1969 |
| Paxtonia | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1975 |
| 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 |
Every Dauphin County city we cover, side by side →
A federal HUD guide to inspecting homes puts a roof's expected life at 20 years, so a house's age says less than the age of the shingles on it now. Any house built from 1950 to 1959 has likely been reroofed at least once, and the number of layers and the state of the deck under them decide what the next roof needs.
Linglestown has 234 single-family attached homes, houses that share a wall, and often a roof, with the one next door. Where two roofs meet over that shared wall, the new shingles and flashing have to tie into the neighbor's roof so water cannot run between them. It helps to tell the neighbor before work starts, and if their roof is near the end of its life too, doing both at once leaves one even seam.
Permits and inspections for Linglestown 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.
By the Census Bureau's estimates, 91% of Linglestown's homes were built before 2000 and 51% before 1970, with a median year built of 1969 (2020–2024 estimates). A roof usually lasts about 20 years, so the deck and the layers get checked before any quote.
The last report near Linglestown of hail 1 inch or bigger came on June 3, 2023; NOAA's records hold 2 of them within 5 miles since 2016.
Not yet: no completed roof in Linglestown 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 · 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.