Our crew repairs and re-roofs houses in Shippensburg, the Cumberland Valley borough that Scotch-Irish settlers founded in 1730 and that now straddles the Cumberland and Franklin county line, beside Shippensburg University.
Shippensburg has about 2.0 square miles of land and roughly 5,620 people. It sits about 37 miles southwest of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17257.
No completed roof in Shippensburg is logged in our job records yet.
Shippensburg's houses run old. Of its 2936 homes, 804 were built in 1939 or earlier and 595 more between 1940 and 1949, while 23 date to 2020 or later. A roof from those early decades often sits on board sheathing rather than plywood, over rafters cut on site and an attic with little room for insulation, and an older layer of shingles may lie under the one you can see. Part of the oldest area falls inside the Shippensburg Historic District, listed on the National Register.
More of Shippensburg is rented than owned: 55.8% of occupied homes are renter-occupied in a borough that borders Shippensburg University, and rental property here is governed by the 2009 International Property Maintenance Code. Of the borough's homes, 1297 are detached houses and 259 are single homes attached to a neighbor, where the seam between two roofs needs its own flashing.
Building permits in the borough come from one of four inspection companies: Commonwealth Code Inspection Service, ARRO Consulting, Pennsylvania Municipal Code Alliance, Inc (PMCA), and Middle Department Inspection Agency. A Land Use Permit has to be issued before any building permit. When a job on your house needs both, we apply for the Land Use Permit first and the building permit second.
Shippensburg winters bring about 34 inches of snow a year, and on a house with a thinly insulated attic that snow is where ice dams begin. In summer the humidity lets moss and algae settle on roof slopes that stay damp.
Gum Run flows through the center of the borough, and mostly field and pasture surround it.
The postwar housing in Shippensburg 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.
The Census Bureau counts 2,936 homes in Shippensburg, with a median year built of 1953. 804 of them (27%) went up before 1940 — 21st of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 134 (5%) in 2000 or later. More of today's homes date from before 1940 than from any decade since. On the pre-1940 share, Shippensburg sits above Cumberland County's 15%.
A roof's first layer has a service life of about 20 years, according to HUD's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide. That puts 2,802 homes in Shippensburg, the 95% built before 2000, past at least one full roof life; 2,045 homes, 70% of the total, predate 1970, old enough for two replacements already. Homes from the 2000s (76 in Shippensburg) are reaching their first replacement, while the 58 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: 1,297 detached houses (44%), 259 attached (9%). 867 homes (30%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 513 (17%) in buildings of ten units or more, where the roof is usually a landlord's or an association's decision. 44% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, 56% 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 | 804 | 27% | |
| 1940s | 595 | 20% | |
| 1950s | 238 | 8% | |
| 1960s | 408 | 14% | |
| 1970s | 438 | 15% | |
| 1980s | 87 | 3% | |
| 1990s | 232 | 8% | |
| 2000s | 76 | 3% | |
| 2010s | 35 | 1% | |
| 2020 or later | 23 | 1% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 2,936 homes, 2,791 occupied. Survey estimates.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center logged one report of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of Shippensburg’s center from 2016 through 2025. The stone was 1 inch, on August 4, 2023, about 2.8 miles east of the center. Counts follow people as much as storms, since every report is a spotter’s or a resident’s.
If that storm crossed your street and nobody has been on the roof since, a storm inspection photographs what it did.
The borough has opted in to the Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code. A building permit is required for any work the Uniform Construction Code covers. A Land Use Permit must be issued first, because it is a prerequisite for the building permit.
Shippensburg does not publish the code edition it currently enforces. We confirm the edition with the building department before we write the scope.
The design wind speed a roof in Shippensburg 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.
Shippensburg borders Shippensburg University.
Also in Cumberland County:
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shippensburg | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| 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 →
Heat from the rooms below leaks into a thinly insulated attic and warms the roof deck. Snow on the roof melts, runs down to the colder eave and freezes again, and the ridge of ice holds back meltwater that can work under the shingles. The borough has 804 homes built in 1939 or earlier, and houses that old often carry thin attic insulation and open gaps around chimneys and ceiling fixtures.
Hail of 1.0 inch was reported on August 4, 2023, 2.8 miles east of the borough. Stones that size can bruise asphalt shingles and loosen their granules without breaking through. From the ground, dents in gutters, downspouts and metal vent caps are an easy first sign that a roof took hits, and a bruised shingle feels soft and looks darker where the granules are gone.
The borough has opted in to the Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code. A building permit is required for any work the Uniform Construction Code covers. A Land Use Permit must be issued first, because it is a prerequisite for the building permit.
Median year built 1953, by the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates. Of 2,936 homes, 2,802 were built before 2000 and 804 before 1940, so most roofs in Shippensburg are not the first one the house has had.
Yes, once in NOAA's records: the one report of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of Shippensburg's center from 2016 through 2025 was 1 inch on August 4, 2023.
It can. Shippensburg has Shippensburg Historic District. Inside a designated district, changing a visible roof material or color can need preservation review before the permit is issued. Like-for-like replacement usually raises fewer questions, but we check before quoting.
Not yet: no completed roof in Shippensburg 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: borough.shippensburg.pa.us · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · www2.census.gov · www2.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · en.wikipedia.org · borough.shippensburg.pa.us · en.wikipedia.org · www2.census.gov · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.