Roofing questions from Worcester homeowners

Heat and air leaking from the living space melt snow on the warm part of the roof. The meltwater runs down to the cold eaves, refreezes, and builds a dam that pushes water back under the shingles. The fix is insulation, air sealing and roof ventilation, and the state handout suggests a home energy assessment to find the gaps.

Massachusetts requires an ice barrier at the eaves where there is a history of ice forming there and backing up water. Your building inspector confirms the extent for your address, so ask before the work is planned.

Use a plastic shovel or a snow rake, and leave about 2 to 3 inches on the shingles rather than scraping down to them. Avoid ladders and heat tools, and do not stand on the roof. Flat and low-pitched roofs carry the greatest risk of buckling under heavy snow and ice.

Look for sagging roofs, severe leaks, cracked wood members and doors that pop open. If you see any of these, leave the building and call 911 from outside. Call the phone line for a visit once the building is safe.

Usually yes. National Park Service guidance says to repair slate rather than replace it whenever possible, and to use copper or stainless nails, since rusting cut nails often cause slate loss. If roughly 20% or more of the slates on a slope are broken, cracked, missing or sliding, replacement is usually cheaper than repairing them one at a time. See the slate roof repair page for more.

Work that alters or repairs a structure needs a permit under 780 CMR. The Department of Inspectional Services handles permits on weekdays from 8am to 4:30pm, and the city encourages online filing; a paper application carries a $50 processing fee. Roof work permits are normally pulled by a holder of a Construction Supervisor License, while the contractor who signs with you needs Home Improvement Contractor registration. Those two credentials are different, and they need not belong to the same person.

Worcester has four local historic districts: Massachusetts Avenue, Montvale, Crown Hill and the Elm Park Neighborhood. Work on any visible part of a property in one needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Worcester Historical Commission, granted after a public hearing. Ask the Commission whether a given property falls inside a district.

Worcester is known for three-deckers built roughly from the 1880s to the mid-1920s, with Queen Anne and Colonial Revival versions and a few gambrel roofs. Owner-occupancy in the city is 42.8%, so many roofs belong to small landlords and three-decker owners who commission the work. The three-decker roofs guide covers what that means for a roof.

Nor'easters bring heavy wet snow and gusts, and repeated freeze-thaw weathers asphalt shingles over time. The most destructive local event on record is the 9 June 1953 tornado, which damaged or destroyed about 4,000 buildings in the area. Heavy snow on flat roofs and repeated thaws at the eaves are the ordinary winter risks here.