Progress was laid out in the 18th century and was the only established settlement in the south end of Susquehanna Township when the township formed in 1815; today our crew fixes leaks and puts new roofs on its houses.
Progress has about 3.0 square miles of land and roughly 11,017 people. It sits about 3 miles northeast of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP codes 17109 and 17110.
No completed roof in Progress is logged in our job records yet.
Progress is an unincorporated community with no municipal government of its own. It sits at about 500 feet of elevation, mainly in Susquehanna Township, and extends east into Lower Paxton Township. Penbrook and Colonial Park border it, and Interstate 83 forms its eastern edge. Susquehanna Township, which holds most of Progress, sets a ground snow load of 30 psf in the design table of its building code.
Most of the houses came long after the 18th-century settlement. The 1950s built 1382 of the 4828 homes in Progress, more than any other decade, while 709 date to 1939 or earlier. Of those homes, 62% are single-family detached, and the rest include multi-unit buildings, with 536 homes in buildings of 10 to 19 units and 530 in buildings of 3 or 4. A detached house from the 1950s has very likely been re-roofed before, and the boards or panels under the shingles are often the ones laid when it was built.
Snow piles on these roofs in winter, and heat escaping into the attic melts it from below; the water runs to the colder eave and freezes into an ice dam. Summers are humid, and moss and algae take hold on the slopes that stay shaded and damp longest. Hail reaches this side of Harrisburg too: on June 3, 2023, reports of 1.0 inch and larger came in both southwest and northeast of Progress.
Postwar houses in Progress 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.
Progress has 4,828 homes in the Census Bureau's count and a median year built of 1960. 709 of them (15%) went up before 1940 — 28th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 185 (4%) in 2000 or later. The 1950s were the busiest decade, adding 1,382 of today's homes (29%). Across Dauphin County the pre-1940 share is 19%, so Progress sits below it.
The Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development puts the service life of a roof's first layer at about 20 years. By that measure, 96% of Progress' homes — the 4,643 built before 2000 — are past their first roof; 3,149 homes, 65% of the total, predate 1970, old enough for two replacements already. Homes from the 2000s (67 in Progress) are reaching their first replacement, while the 118 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.
Detached single-family houses make up 62% (2,991); attached houses and townhouses 3% (142). 917 homes (19%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 759 (16%) in buildings of ten units or more, whose roofs are normally an owner's or a board's call rather than a resident's. Owners live in 57% of the 4,608 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 | 709 | 15% | |
| 1940s | 382 | 8% | |
| 1950s | 1,382 | 29% | |
| 1960s | 676 | 14% | |
| 1970s | 713 | 15% | |
| 1980s | 270 | 6% | |
| 1990s | 511 | 11% | |
| 2000s | 67 | 1% | |
| 2010s | 109 | 2% | |
| 2020 or later | 9 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 4,828 homes, 4,608 occupied. Survey estimates.
Between 2016 and 2025 there were 5 reports of 1-inch-plus hail within 5 miles of Progress’ center in the records of NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, all on the same day. 1 of them was 1.75 inches or larger. The largest, 1.75 inches, came on June 3, 2023, about 3 miles southwest of the center. These are reports, not a full record: they come from spotters and the public, so busier areas log more.
| Latest reports | Size | From center |
|---|---|---|
| June 3, 2023 | 1 inch | 1.8 mi SW |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.75 inches | 3 mi SW |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.25 inches | 1.8 mi SW |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.5 inches | 3.2 mi NE |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.5 inches | 4.3 mi NE |
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.
Permits and inspections for Progress 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 Progress 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 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.
Progress borders Colonial Park and Penbrook. Our pages for them:
Also in Dauphin County:
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Progress | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1960 |
| Colonial Park | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1969 |
| Penbrook | Not published | Not published | 1952 |
| 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 →
Yes. At Harrisburg International Airport in Middletown, the official Harrisburg weather station, NOAA's 1991–2020 normals give 101.1 days a year with a minimum at or below 32°F and 18.7 days a year with a maximum at or below 32°F. On days that never climb above freezing, an ice ridge at the eave stays put, and meltwater held behind it can work back up under the shingles.
On June 3, 2023, hail was reported on both sides of Progress: 1.0-inch and 1.25-inch stones 1.8 miles southwest, 1.5-inch stones 3.2 and 4.3 miles northeast, and the largest, 1.75 inches, 3.0 miles southwest. Gutters, downspouts and metal vent caps tend to show hail dents more plainly than shingles, so on a house that sat in that storm, we check those first.
Permits and inspections for Progress 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.
Median year built 1960, by the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates. Of 4,828 homes, 4,643 were built before 2000 and 709 before 1940, so most roofs in Progress are not the first one the house has had.
The last report near Progress of hail 1 inch or bigger came on June 3, 2023; NOAA's records hold 5 of them within 5 miles since 2016.
Not yet: no completed roof in Progress 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.