Wormleysburg looks across the Susquehanna at Harrisburg from the river's west bank, where the Market Street Bridge and the M. Harvey Taylor Memorial Bridge cross. Our crew repairs and replaces its roofs, starting with a free inspection at the house.
Wormleysburg has about 0.8 square miles of land and roughly 3,077 people. It sits about 1 miles west of downtown Harrisburg-Carlisle. We cover ZIP codes 17043 and 17011.
No completed roof in Wormleysburg is logged in our job records yet.
Wormleysburg is named for its founder John Wormley, was settled in 1772 and was cut out of East Pennsboro Township in 1916. Its 0.8 square miles border Lemoyne, West Fairview and, across the river, Harrisburg, and its named neighborhoods include The Village, Pennsboro Manor and Riverview Heights. The oldest houses are a small group: 186 homes, 14% of the total, were built in 1939 or earlier, and on those the wood under the shingles needs checking before a new roof is planned.
The two biggest decades for building here were the 1960s, with 320 homes, and the 1980s, with 300, while just 6% of the borough's housing went up in 2000 or later. A 1960s house and a 1980s house can differ under the shingles, in the sheathing nailed to the rafters and in how much attic there is to work in, so two re-roofs in Wormleysburg can start from different places even when the shingles on top look alike.
Only 41% of the borough's housing units are detached single houses. Another 159 are attached to a neighbor, and the rest sit in buildings of two or more units. On a twin or a row house the roof runs across the party wall, so new shingles on one side have to tie into the neighbor's roof at that seam. With 733 of the 1300 occupied homes rented, many roofs here are a landlord's decision, not the tenant's.
Winters here run through freeze-thaw cycles, and snow that piles on a roof can melt and refreeze into ice dams at the eaves. Summers are humid, and moss and dark algae take hold on shingles that stay damp. On a Wormleysburg house we read the eaves for winter damage and the shingle face for summer growth, then check the attic, where an ice dam usually starts.
Postwar houses in Wormleysburg 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.
The Census Bureau counts 1,370 homes in Wormleysburg, with a median year built of 1969. 186 of them (14%) went up before 1940 — 29th of 37 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 79 (6%) in 2000 or later. The 1960s were the busiest decade, adding 320 of today's homes (23%). On the pre-1940 share, Wormleysburg sits below 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. By that measure, 94% of Wormleysburg's homes — the 1,291 built before 2000 — are past their first roof, and the 702 built before 1970 (51%) are usually on a third covering or later. Homes from the 2000s (68 in Wormleysburg) are reaching their first replacement, while the 11 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.
41% of homes in Wormleysburg are single-family detached houses (555) and 12% attached ones such as townhouses (159). 304 homes (22%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings and 352 (26%) in buildings of ten units or more, where a resident rarely gets to choose the roofer. 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 and flat and low-slope sections, which turn up more on attached and multi-unit buildings.
| Built | Homes | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1940 | 186 | 14% | |
| 1940s | 74 | 5% | |
| 1950s | 122 | 9% | |
| 1960s | 320 | 23% | |
| 1970s | 168 | 12% | |
| 1980s | 300 | 22% | |
| 1990s | 121 | 9% | |
| 2000s | 68 | 5% | |
| 2010s | 11 | 1% | |
| 2020 or later | 0 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 1,370 homes, 1,300 occupied. Survey estimates.
Between 2016 and 2025 there were 3 reports of 1-inch-plus hail within 5 miles of Wormleysburg’s 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 1.6 miles east 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 | 2.7 mi E |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.75 inches | 1.6 mi E |
| June 3, 2023 | 1.25 inches | 2.5 mi NE |
If one of those storms crossed your street and nobody has been on the roof since, a storm inspection photographs what it did.
Wormleysburg publishes no rule either way on a like-for-like re-roof, so we ask the building department before we start and pull whatever it wants.
Wormleysburg does not publish the code edition it currently enforces. We confirm the edition with the building department before we write the scope.
Wormleysburg does not publish a building official’s name, so the permit conversation is with the department itself. We check the department’s own page for its current permit rules before a job.
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.
Wormleysburg borders Lemoyne, Harrisburg and West Fairview. Our pages for them:
Also in Cumberland County:
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wormleysburg | Not published | Not published | 1969 |
| Lemoyne | Not published | Not published | 1949 |
| Harrisburg | Yes | Not published | 1947 |
| West Fairview | Not published | UCC (2021 IRC) | 1939 or earlier |
| 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 →
Yes. On June 3, 2023, NOAA's Storm Prediction Center logged three hail reports east and northeast of the borough, the largest 1.75 inches at 1.6 miles east and the others 1.25 inches and 1 inch. Its reports for 2016 to 2025 show no other day with hail of 1 inch or more within 5 miles. Stones that size can bruise shingles and dent metal vents without causing a leak right away.
An ice dam forms when attic heat melts the underside of the snow, the water runs down, and it freezes again at the colder eave, where the ice holds back more water that works under the shingles. Freeze-thaw winters repeat the cycle, so a house that leaks heat into its attic tends to get dams year after year. Whether yours dates from the borough's 1960s building wave or its 1980s one, insulation and attic ventilation are where a lasting fix begins.
Wormleysburg publishes no rule on it. We ask the building department first and pull whatever it requires.
By the Census Bureau's estimates, 94% of Wormleysburg's homes were built before 2000 and 51% before 1970, with a median year built of 1969 (2020–2024 estimates). A roof usually lasts about 20 years, so the deck and the layers get checked before any quote.
3 reports of 1-inch-plus hail fell within 5 miles of Wormleysburg between 2016 and 2025, the biggest 1.75 inches on June 3, 2023 (NOAA Storm Prediction Center).
Not yet: no completed roof in Wormleysburg 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: www.wormleysburgpa.org · www.wormleysburgpa.org · www.wormleysburgpa.org · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · www2.census.gov · www2.census.gov · data.census.gov · data.census.gov · www.wormleysburgpa.org · en.wikipedia.org · www2.census.gov · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.