West Fairview sits on a hilly peninsula where Conodoguinet Creek meets the Susquehanna, across the river from Harrisburg, and its median home was built in 1938. Our crew repairs and replaces the roofs on those old houses.
West Fairview has about 0.3 square miles of land and roughly 1,208 people. It sits about 2 miles northwest of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP code 17025.
No completed roof in West Fairview is logged in our job records yet.
West Fairview was a borough of its own before it became part of East Pennsboro Township. The Susquehanna runs along its east side and Conodoguinet Creek along its south and west, and the village sits at about 360 feet on the river's west shore, its 0.3 square miles bordered by Enola, Wormleysburg and Harrisburg. On a sloping street the low side of a house can stand well above the sidewalk, and flat ground for ladders and a dumpster can be scarce, so a tear-off here gets set up around the hill.
Of the village's 663 homes, 387 date to 1939 or earlier. By type, 232 are single-family houses attached to a neighbor, 144 stand detached and 72 are mobile homes. Roofs of that era were usually laid over boards rather than plywood, and on a house this old those boards can be split, gapped or loose at the nails by the time the shingles come off.
At Harrisburg International Airport in Middletown, Harrisburg's official National Weather Service climate station, the 1991–2020 normals are 101.1 days a year with a low at or below 32°F and 18.7 days a year with a high at or below 32°F. On June 3, 2023, the NOAA Storm Prediction Center logged hail of 1.75 inches 2.5 miles southeast of West Fairview, 1.25 inches 2.7 miles east and 1.0 inch 3.3 miles east. Stones that size can crack an old shingle or strip its granules without a leak showing right away. Bruises from that day can still sit unnoticed on a slope, and we will climb yours and point out any we find without charging for the visit.
Houses of this age in West Fairview were sheathed with solid board decking rather than plywood, and boards move. Plank gaps open up, nails back out, and a shingle fastened into a gap has nothing holding it. We also expect original step and counter-flashing at chimneys and walls — often the real leak while the shingles look fine — and more than one house on a street like this has two or three roofs stacked on it because someone went over rather than tore off. That matters: layers hide the decking, add weight, and void most manufacturer warranties. If there is original slate or tile anywhere on the property, it wants a different conversation than an asphalt tear-off.
West Fairview has 663 homes in the Census Bureau's count and a median year built of 1939 or earlier, the oldest band the survey reports. 387 of them (58%) went up before 1940 — 6th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 17 (3%) in 2000 or later. More of today's homes date from before 1940 than from any decade since. On the pre-1940 share, West Fairview sits above Cumberland County's 15%.
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. That puts 646 homes in West Fairview, the 97% built before 2000, past at least one full roof life; 461 homes, 70% of the total, predate 1970, old enough for two replacements already. Homes from the 2000s (17 in West Fairview) are reaching their first replacement. On houses that old, the question worth asking is how many layers are up there: a roof laid over an old one hides the deck.
22% of homes in West Fairview are single-family detached houses (144) and 35% attached ones such as townhouses (232). 150 homes (23%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 65 (10%) in buildings of ten units or more, whose roofs are normally an owner's or a board's call rather than a resident's. The count also takes in 72 mobile homes, which are a different kind of roof job. 333 of 607 occupied homes (55%) are lived in by their owners. 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 | 387 | 58% | |
| 1940s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1950s | 61 | 9% | |
| 1960s | 13 | 2% | |
| 1970s | 85 | 13% | |
| 1980s | 92 | 14% | |
| 1990s | 8 | 1% | |
| 2000s | 17 | 3% | |
| 2010s | 0 | 0% | |
| 2020 or later | 0 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 663 homes, 607 occupied. Survey estimates.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center logged 3 reports of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of West Fairview’s center from 2016 through 2025, all on one day. 1 of them was 1.75 inches or larger. The largest, 1.75 inches, came on June 3, 2023, about 2.5 miles southeast of the center. Counts follow people as much as storms, since every report is a spotter’s or a resident’s.
| Latest reports | Size | From center |
|---|---|---|
| June 3, 2023 | 1 inch | 3.3 mi E |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.75 inches | 2.5 mi SE |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.25 inches | 2.7 mi E |
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 West Fairview 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 West Fairview 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.
West Fairview borders Enola, Harrisburg and Wormleysburg. Our pages for them:
Also in Cumberland County:
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Fairview | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1939 or earlier |
| Enola | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1969 |
| Harrisburg | Yes | Not published | 1947 |
| Wormleysburg | Not published | Not published | 1969 |
| Boiling Springs | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1986 |
| Camp Hill | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
| Carlisle | Not published | Not published | 1953 |
Every Cumberland County city we cover, side by side →
It can. West Fairview has more single-family houses attached to a neighbor than detached ones, and on an attached house your share of the roof ends over the shared wall. The new roof has to be tied into the neighbor's old one there so water cannot get in between, and the flashing at that seam matters as much as the shingles. Talking with your neighbor before tear-off day avoids surprises on both sides.
In West Fairview, 100 of the 607 occupied homes heat with fuel oil, and an oil burner usually vents its exhaust up a chimney. A chimney still in use has to stay sound where it passes through the roof, so its flashing, its mortar joints and its cap belong in the re-roof plan instead of being left for another year.
Permits and inspections for West Fairview 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, 97% of West Fairview's homes were built before 2000 and 70% before 1970, with a median year built of 1939 or earlier (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 West Fairview of hail 1 inch or bigger came on June 3, 2023; NOAA's records hold 3 of them within 5 miles since 2016.
Not yet: no completed roof in West Fairview 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 · www2.census.gov · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.