Hicksville roofs, from the ladder
Hicksville is farm country right against the Indiana line. Open ground, long wind runs, winters that freeze and thaw for weeks at a time. On an asphalt roof that shows up as lifted tabs on the west slope and a stain over the eave every February where ice backed up under the shingles. Neither is dramatic. Both are the roof telling you it was not built for this.
The two kinds of buildings here
Most of what I look at in Hicksville is either an older house in the village — a two-story with a steeper pitch, a valley or two, a porch roof at a different slope — or a farmstead with a house and outbuildings.
On the outbuildings, screw-down panel is the right roof and probably already up there. Lower cost, goes on fast, fine on a building you are not living under. Just know the deal: the rubber washer under every screw is a wear item, due attention somewhere around year ten to twelve. Skip that and it leaks at a hundred small points at once.
On the house, if you plan to keep it, I would not put screw-down on it. Mechanically seamed standing seam — panels formed on site to the full length of the run, held by concealed clips, nothing in the weather — is what I trust most on a residential roof. If the house is older and you want it to still look like a shingle roof, a four-side interlocking metal shingle does that, and wants at least a 3/12 pitch. We do not install exposed fastener under 4/12 on anything.
Stone-coated steel comes up too. It looks like shingle or shake, and it manages water after it gets in, which makes it heavily dependent on the underlayment. I am cautious recommending it for long-term residential use.
Who should not be calling us
Anyone moving in a few years. Anyone whose roof has one bad detail and life left in it — that is a repair, we do not take repair calls, and a repair contractor is the honest answer. Anyone who wants shingles again; we install metal only.
The drive
Hicksville is about 35 minutes from our Fort Wayne office, closer than a lot of Indiana. Ohio is not home, Fort Wayne is, and if a local crew matters more to you, that is a fair call. The roof and the warranty are the same either way.
“We also serve surrounding towns and rural communities throughout Northeast Indiana, Northwest Ohio, and Southern Michigan within roughly a 90-minute drive of our Fort Wayne and Noblesville offices.”
