Roofing in Palmdale, Pennsylvania

Palmdale at a glance

Palmdale has about 1.5 square miles of land and roughly 1,542 people. It sits about 14 miles east of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17033.

No completed roof in Palmdale is logged in our job records yet.

A Palmdale roof: mixed housing and freeze-thaw winters

Palmdale is an unincorporated community in eastern Derry Township, 14 miles east of downtown Harrisburg. Hershey borders it on the north, west and south, and U.S. Route 422, called East Chocolate Avenue, is the main road through it. The land lies at about 433 feet. When you book, tell us which kind of home you have, since a detached house, a duplex and a mobile home are roofed differently.

The median home here was built in 1976, and 128 of Palmdale's 657 housing units date to the 1970s. Another 78 went up in the 1980s and 110 in the 2010s, so roofs of very different ages sit on the same street. At the old end, 75 homes date to 1939 or earlier and 85 to the 1950s. The mix is wide: 236 detached houses, 98 mobile homes, 64 homes in two-unit buildings and 77 in buildings of three or four units. About 66% of Palmdale's occupied homes are rented, so a roof often has an owner and a tenant who both need to know when work starts.

Winter does most of the damage. Snow piles on roofs, melts at midday and refreezes at the eaves. Ice dams follow wherever attic heat leaks through, and 41% of Palmdale homes heat with electricity, which still sends warm air up to the roof deck. Humid summers add mildew, and moss and roof algae settle on the shaded slopes.

The housing stock in Palmdale

What we usually find on a late-century roof

Housing from these decades usually sits on plywood or OSB decking and was largely first roofed with three-tab shingles, but we look at each house in Palmdale before saying which. The things worth checking are the penetrations rather than the field: pipe boots from this era are worth a close look, because the rubber collar splits long before the shingles wear out. Ridge venting was inconsistent through these years, and OSB that has been damp for a season goes soft in a way plywood does not — you find it with your feet, not from the ground.

The houses we roof in Palmdale

Palmdale has 657 homes in the Census Bureau's count and a median year built of 1976. 75 of them (11%) went up before 1940 — 30th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 195 (30%) in 2000 or later. The 1970s were the busiest decade, adding 128 of today's homes (19%). On the pre-1940 share, Palmdale sits below Dauphin County's 19%.

A roof's first layer has a service life of about 20 years, according to HUD's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide. By that measure, 70% of Palmdale's homes — the 462 built before 2000 — are past their first roof, and the 256 built before 1970 (39%) are usually on a third covering or later. The 85 homes from the 2000s are where first replacements come up now, while the 110 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.

36% of homes in Palmdale are single-family detached houses (236) and 15% attached ones such as townhouses (97). 141 homes (21%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 85 (13%) 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 98 mobile homes, which are a different kind of roof job. 184 of 545 occupied homes (34%) are lived in by their owners. When we look at houses like these, our work can include flat and low-slope sections, which turn up more on attached and multi-unit buildings and storm checks on newer roofs that look fine from the driveway.

Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 657 homes, 545 occupied. Survey estimates.

Hail reports near Palmdale

From 2016 through 2025, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center recorded 6 reports of hail of 1 inch or more within 5 miles of Palmdale’s center, spread over 4 storm days. None was 1.75 inches or larger. The largest, 1.25 inches, came on July 6, 2021, about 1.8 miles southwest of the center. The most recent was 1 inch on June 26, 2023. These are reports, not a full record: they come from spotters and the public, so busier areas log more.

A bruised shingle can look fine for a season or two, which is why a storm inspection after a date like these is worth having.

Do you need a permit here?

Permits and inspections for Palmdale 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.

Which code applies in Palmdale

The code that applies in Palmdale 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 layer

The design figures behind the spec

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.

Nearby

Palmdale borders Hershey. Our pages for them:

Also in Dauphin County:

How Palmdale compares with its neighbors

Every Dauphin County city we cover, side by side →

Common questions about roofing in Palmdale

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.