Mountain Creek, fed by the borough's own springs, flows down from South Mountain through Mount Holly Springs, 19 miles southwest of downtown Harrisburg, and we inspect, repair and replace roofs on its houses, from 1950s builds to iron-making-era stone dwellings.
Mount Holly Springs has about 1.4 square miles of land and roughly 2,373 people. It sits about 19 miles southwest of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17065.
No completed roof in Mount Holly Springs is logged in our job records yet.
Mount Holly Springs fits 902 homes into 1.4 square miles. Of those, 295, or 33%, date to 1939 or earlier, the 1950s added 156 more, and only 6% went up in 2000 or later. On a house that old, the roof deck is often boards rather than plywood, and a newer shingle layer may sit over an older one, so what lies under the top layer decides the job.
Single detached houses make up 52% of the borough's housing units. Another 170 are attached, where one roof often spans a shared wall and the seam over it is a usual leak point, and 63 are mobile homes, roofed another way entirely. Of 853 occupied homes, 413 heat with fuel oil and 28 with wood. Both need a flue, which puts a chimney on many roofs here, with flashing that can fail before the shingles wear out.
Winter piles snow on these roofs and builds ice dams at the eaves. In many pre-1940 houses here, thin attic insulation lets heat melt that snow from below, and the water refreezes at the overhang and backs up under the shingles. Humid summers let moss and algae take hold on shaded slopes, and the moss keeps the shingles wet.
Permit and code questions in Mount Holly Springs go to the borough rather than Cumberland County. The Mt. Holly Springs Zoning and Codes Office administers zoning along with the Building, Electrical, Plumbing and Property Maintenance Codes, and Jason Bonawitz is its Codes Enforcement Officer. When you ask us to look at a house here, we start at the chimney and wherever the roof meets stone or a shared wall, and that first look is free.
The postwar housing in Mount Holly Springs 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 902 homes in Mount Holly Springs, with a median year built of 1955. 295 of them (33%) went up before 1940 — 19th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 57 (6%) 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. That puts 845 homes in Mount Holly Springs, the 94% built before 2000, past at least one full roof life, and 67% (607 homes) go back before 1970, two roof lives and more. First replacements are arriving on the 49 homes built in the 2000s, while the 8 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.
By building type: 473 detached houses (52%), 170 attached (19%). 150 homes (17%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 46 (5%) 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 63 mobile homes, which are a different kind of roof job. Owners live in 56% of the 853 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 | 295 | 33% | |
| 1940s | 71 | 8% | |
| 1950s | 156 | 17% | |
| 1960s | 85 | 9% | |
| 1970s | 54 | 6% | |
| 1980s | 103 | 11% | |
| 1990s | 81 | 9% | |
| 2000s | 49 | 5% | |
| 2010s | 8 | 1% | |
| 2020 or later | 0 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 902 homes, 853 occupied. Survey estimates.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center logged no reports of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of Mount Holly Springs’ 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.
Mount Holly Springs has not published an answer on re-roof permits. The Mt. Holly Springs Zoning and Codes Office (717-486-7615 ext. 1030) gets the question from us before work starts, and any permit it wants is part of our job.
Mount Holly Springs 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 717-486-7615 ext. 1030. The building official is Jason Bonawitz, Codes Enforcement Officer. We check the department’s own page for its current permit rules before a job.
What goes into a new roof, layer by layerThe design wind speed a roof in Mount Holly Springs is built to depends on where the house stands: 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 can confirm the figure, and the code guide explains what it governs.
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Holly Springs | Not published | Not published | 1955 |
| Boiling Springs | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1986 |
| Camp Hill | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| Carlisle | 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 |
Every Cumberland County city we cover, side by side →
A few small stone dwellings from the iron-making era still stand along State Routes 34 and 94 in the southern part of the borough. Their walls are stone, so wherever the roof meets a wall or a chimney, the counter flashing is set into a cut mortar joint and laps over the step flashing below it rather than being glued to the face. The framing on a house that old is checked from the attic before any shingles are chosen.
Yes. The borough has 170 attached homes, and on a twin one roof often runs across the shared wall. Your half can be done alone: the new roof stops at the line over the party wall, and that seam is flashed and sealed so water sheds past the joint instead of into it. If the neighbor's half is wearing out as well, doing both together leaves no seam between new and old shingles.
Nothing published settles it for Mount Holly Springs, so the Mt. Holly Springs Zoning and Codes Office gets the question before work starts and any permit it wants is pulled by us.
The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates put the median year built at 1955: 33% of Mount Holly Springs' 902 homes predate 1940 and 6% were built in 2000 or later. At the usual 20-year roof life, the 94% built before 2000 are past at least one full roof life.
The building official is Jason Bonawitz, Codes Enforcement Officer. We reach the permit desk at 717-486-7615 ext. 1030.
Not yet: no completed roof in Mount Holly Springs 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: mhsboro.org · mhsboro.org · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · www2.census.gov · www2.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · mhsboro.org · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.