Roofing in Lake City, South Carolina

Lake City grew up as a tobacco market town, and that history still shows in the housing. The blocks around Main Street and the old warehouse district hold early-to-mid twentieth-century frame homes, some of them modest and close to the street, others larger and more detailed from the years when the tobacco sales floors drew money into town. As you move out from the center you pick up brick ranches from the middle of the last century and newer homes on the edges toward the highways. It isn't one uniform style, so a roof here can be anything from an aging steep gable to a low-slope porch or addition tacked onto an older house.

The climate is the harder problem. Summers in this part of the Pee Dee are long, hot and humid, and that humidity is what you see first on a roof: dark algae streaking on the shaded, north-facing slopes, and moss taking hold where trees hang over the shingles. Afternoon thunderstorms drive rain sideways under flashing and into any gap around a chimney or vent, and the tail ends of tropical systems occasionally push through with sustained wind and a lot of water in a short time.

Older frame homes downtown deserve particular attention, since decades of that weather add up around aging flashing and worn valleys.

Watch the spots where an older Lake City house has been added onto over the years. Many of these homes started with a straightforward gable roof and later gained a low-slope porch cover, back room, or carport, and the seam where that flatter section meets the original steeper roof is almost always where leaks start. Those transitions collect debris, hold water instead of shedding it, and rely on flashing that was often an afterthought. If you own one of these homes, have that junction inspected before the shingles themselves.