Decatur Roof Pros: Roof Replacement, Repair and Re-Roofing
Expert residential and commercial roofing services. Free inspections across Decatur and Macon County, with a written layer count on every report.
- Layer count in writing on every inspection
- Licensed Illinois roofing contractor, number on the bid
- City of Decatur permit pulled before the first bundle
- Free inspections across Macon County
Our Roofing Services in Decatur, IL
Roof Replacement
Replacement here begins with a number that has nothing to do with your roof's age. How many coverings are already up there decides whether you have a choice at all, and most people who call us have never once been told theirs.
Roof Leak Repair
A leak on a doubled-up roof does not behave like a leak on a single one. Water that gets past the top course travels sideways in the space between the two, sometimes for several feet, before it finds a way down through the deck.
Storm Damage Restoration
A storm is the moment your layer count stops being private. The adjuster measures it the same way we do, writes it into the file, and it shapes what the carrier believes it owes you long before anyone talks about shingle brands or colors.
Hail Damage Roofing
Reading hail on a Decatur roof means reading it through whatever is underneath. A bruise is a fracture in the shingle mat, and the mat behaves differently depending on what is supporting it at the moment the stone lands.
Wind Damage Roofing
The most common wind failure we take off Decatur houses is not a bad shingle or a bad storm. It is a nail that never reached wood, on a roof somebody laid over an existing one without changing the fastener.
Roof Inspections
Our inspection answers a different first question than most. Before condition, before age, before anything about product, we establish how many roof coverings are on the building and we put that number at the top of the report.
Asphalt Shingle Roofs
This is the page where we put in writing the thing most companies in this trade will only say quietly. On a one-layer Decatur house with a flat, sound deck, laying new shingles over the old ones is a legitimate roof, and quite often it is the one we recommend.
Metal Roofing
Metal is the covering the code treats most generously as a recover, and it is also the one we most often talk Decatur homeowners out of putting on the main house. Those two facts are not in tension once you look at the numbers.
Tile Roofing
We service tile and slate on the Decatur houses that already have it, and we will not sell you a conversion to it on a house that does not. This page mostly exists to explain the second half of that sentence.
Flat and Low-Slope Roofing
Most low-slope roofing in Decatur is not a commercial building. It is the back of a house: a rear addition put on in the 1950s, a porch deck, a kitchen bump-out, a garage tied into a steeper roof above it.
Roof Coatings and Sealing
Coatings do real work in the right place and cause real harm in the wrong one. In Decatur the wrong ones outnumber the right ones badly, so this page spends most of its length on the jobs we turn down.
Roof Ventilation
A recover adds a covering and adds nothing at all to the ventilation underneath it. That sounds obvious written down, and it is still the single most common thing that gets skipped when a Decatur roof is done cheaply.
Skylights
A skylight is the one thing on a roof that cannot be nested. Every other detail on a recover can be worked around by setting new courses into the old butt lines, but a skylight has to be dealt with directly, and that decides more recover jobs than people expect.
Gutters and Downspouts
Two practical facts shape gutter work in this city. Decatur requires a permit to reroof and does not require one for gutters and downspouts, and a recover changes the relationship between the shingle edge and the trough behind it.
Fascia and Soffit
The eave is where a roof tells you what has been done to it. Layer count shows in section at the rake, and the condition of the fascia and the cornice shows how long water has been arriving in the wrong place.
Chimney and Flashing
If a recover fails early in Decatur, the flashing is usually why. The field of a nested roof is quite forgiving.
Emergency Tarping
Tarping is meant to buy you a dry building and a clear head, not to start a sales process. We put on a cover that will hold, we photograph what is underneath before we cover it, and then we go away and let you think.
Commercial Roofing
Decatur carries far more commercial and industrial roof area than a city of seventy thousand normally would. Corn and soybean processing, the Caterpillar plant that builds the large off-highway trucks, and the warehousing around them all sit on large low-slope decks.
Insurance Claim Help
We help with claims and we spend as much time talking people out of filing as we do helping them file. On the housing stock and at the values that exist in Decatur, a fair number of claims cost more than they return.
Decatur Roof Pros covers roof replacement, leak repair, hail and storm damage, and full re-roofing across Decatur, Illinois. We install laminated architectural shingles, standing seam and exposed-fastener metal, and single-ply membrane on low-slope decks, and we begin every job by working out how many roof coverings are already on the building.
That count is not a formality here. The Census Bureau put Decatur's median owner-occupied house at 115,600 dollars in its 2024 American Community Survey against 280,700 statewide, and roughly eight in ten houses in the city were built before 1980. In a market like that the cheap roof has been the usual roof for two generations, and the cheap roof is a nail-over.
So some houses here can legally take another covering and should, and some cannot take one at any price. The 2021 International Residential Code, which the city adopted effective January 2024, bars a re-cover once two applications are already in place. We tell you which house you own before we quote it, and we quote the smaller job whenever the smaller job is the right one.
What Decatur Customers Say
Two companies quoted us a full tear-off without ever getting on the roof. These guys lifted a shingle at the rake, showed me one layer and a solid deck, and quoted a re-cover for about half. Four winters later there is nothing to report.
Our shop building had a flat roof somebody had rolled over twice. They took core plugs, drew it up on a plan and showed me the wet bays. We replaced those and coated the rest, which was a fraction of what I had budgeted for.
Called about hail after the neighbors all filed. They chalked test squares, counted, and told me straight that what I had was granule wear and a claim would probably be denied. Nobody has ever talked me out of spending money before.
The chimney was where our old roof failed, and they explained exactly why the last crew's caulk job was never going to hold on an overlay. New step flashing woven in, counterflashing reset in a cut joint. Dry through a bad spring.
Why Decatur Chooses Decatur Roof Pros
- ✓We count the coverings on your roof before we price it, at a rake and again at an eave, and the number goes on the estimate. Nobody can quote a Decatur roof honestly without it, and most bids you will collect never mention yours at all.
- ✓At two applications we stop offering choices. The residential code the city adopted forbids a third, so there is one lawful job and one price, and we show you the doubled courses we found rather than asking you to take our word for it.
- ✓At one application we will quote the nail-over, which a lot of companies in this market refuse to put on paper because it is the smaller sale and the harder thing to be proud of.
- ✓Fastener length is a written line rather than a shop habit. A shingle going over an existing covering needs a longer nail to reach wood, and short nails on a re-cover are the failure we pull off houses here more than any other.
- ✓We turn work down in writing: no coatings over asphalt shingles, no tile conversions without an engineer's letter naming the load, and nothing that would bury a layer count somebody later needs to read.
- ✓Intake and exhaust ventilation are counted in square inches and printed on the estimate, because adding a covering adds nothing to the airflow underneath it and a boxed cornice has no intake to begin with.
About Decatur Roof Pros in Decatur, IL
We work on Decatur roofs, on the Macon County villages around the city, and on the small towns south and east of it in Moultrie, Shelby and Christian counties. Most of what we do is asphalt: replacement, re-covering where it is allowed, leak repair, storm and hail work, and the flashing and ventilation that decide whether any of it lasts.
What shapes how we work is the housing itself. This is an old, inexpensive stock in a city that has been getting smaller for decades, and it has been reroofed cheaply many times over. So the first thing we establish is how many coverings are already up there, because that single fact decides what the code permits, what the job costs and whether we should be selling you anything at all.
There are jobs we will not take. We do not coat asphalt shingles, we do not price tile conversions without a structural engineer's letter, we will not write an insurance claim we do not believe is covered, and we will not quote a re-cover on a roof already carrying two applications no matter how the conversation goes. If your roof has four honest years left in it, we would rather say so and look again later.
How It Works
- 1
We Count the Coverings First
Before condition and before age, we lift a tab at a rake where the courses show in section, then lift again at an eave. On a low-slope deck we take a small core and patch it. The number goes at the top of your report, because everything after it depends on the answer.
- 2
You Get the Code Answer, Not the Sales Answer
At two applications the residential code Decatur adopted rules out a re-cover, so there is one lawful job. At one, both routes are open. We name which of the two you are in, and show you the spot where we settled it.
- 3
Two Prices Where Two Prices Exist
On a one-layer house you get a re-cover figure and a tear-off figure side by side, with the years each buys written down. On a two-layer house you get one number and the reason there is only one. We do not pad a bid with an option that is not legally available.
- 4
Permit, Install, and a File You Keep
We pull the City of Decatur permit before the first bundle is opened, install to the fastening and ventilation figures on the estimate, and hand over photographs and product labels at the end. Nobody else keeps a record of a shingle roof, so you should.
Commercial and Industrial Roofing in Decatur and Across Macon County
Decatur carries far more low-slope roof area than a city of seventy thousand usually does. Grain and oilseed processing, the Caterpillar plant that builds the large off-highway trucks, the warehousing that serves them, and a downtown of older masonry buildings all sit under flat decks.
We survey these with core cuts on a grid rather than a walk-around, log every plug against a numbered roof plan, and give you the assembly you actually own before anybody proposes what to do about it.
- ✓Core cuts taken on a grid and logged against a numbered roof plan you keep
- ✓Moisture survey before any recover or coating, because wet insulation means paying twice
- ✓Section 1512 of the 2021 building code checked on every recover, including the two-application limit
- ✓Mechanically fastened and fully adhered single-ply over cover board, spec'd to what the deck holds
- ✓Tapered polyisocyanurate to move water toward drains reset with new rings and strainers
- ✓Selective replacement of wet bays where a survey shows the rest of the roof is sound
- ✓Perimeter and corner fastening tightened in the zones where uplift is highest
- ✓Written five-year outlook so a roof gets scheduled in a capital plan instead of failing into one
Service Areas
Decatur Roof Pros serves Decatur, IL and surrounding communities including:
Recent Projects Across Macon County and the middle Sangamon valley
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find out how many layers of shingles are on my Decatur roof?
Somebody has to lift a shingle. At a rake the courses are visible in section, so lifting a tab there shows the count directly, and we lift again at an eave because a house recovered in stages can carry one layer on an addition and two on the original. It takes a few minutes and it is free. Nobody can tell you from the driveway, and any bid that never mentions your count was written without the main fact.
Is it legal to put new shingles over old ones in Decatur?
Yes, at one existing layer, and no at two. Decatur adopted the 2021 International Residential Code effective January 2024, and section R908.3.1.1 says a roof re-cover is not permitted where the existing roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering. The same section also rules it out where the existing roofing is water soaked or badly deteriorated, or where the covering is slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile.
Does Decatur require a permit to replace a roof?
Yes. Roofing appears in the permit-required column of the city's own residential permit guide, and permits are issued by the Building Inspections Division of the Economic and Community Development Department. Gutters and downspouts are listed as not requiring one. Illinois law also stops a municipality from issuing a roofing permit to a contractor who cannot show a current state license, so the permit and the license are linked.
Is a nail-over ever actually a good idea, or is it just a shortcut?
It is a legitimate roof when the conditions are right, and the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association says so in its own bulletin on the subject. One existing layer lying flat, sound decking, no sagging along the ridge, and shingles not so distorted that a new course cannot bed. Where all of that holds, a nested re-cover is a proportionate decision on a house at Decatur values rather than a corner being cut.
Why is my neighbor's roof thousands cheaper than the price I was quoted?
Usually because one of you has a layer the other does not. A tear-off means removal down to the deck, disposal, and often deck repair once it is exposed, and none of that exists on a re-cover. Two houses that look identical from the street can be a five-figure gap apart for that reason alone, which is why we put the count on the estimate rather than leaving you to wonder.
Will a re-cover hurt me when I go to sell the house?
It can, and it is worth going in with your eyes open. A buyer's inspector will find the count, and a buyer whose lender wants remaining life on the roof may push back on it. Against that, an appropriate re-cover that is properly flashed and fastened is a working roof with years in it. What causes trouble at sale is a re-cover done badly, not the fact of one.