Flat ground, long wind, and what that means on a roof
Paulding County is some of the flattest, most open country we work in. Fields run to the horizon and the wind gets a clean run at every roof. I think about wind before anything else here, because wind is where fastener choice shows itself. A shingle has a tab to catch. A screw-down panel carries its wind load on screws and rubber washers. A mechanically seamed standing seam panel is held by concealed clips with no fastener head in the weather at all.
Low-slope porch roofs and additions hold snow, and when it melts and refreezes at the eave, the underlayment is doing the real work. Ask anyone who quotes you what goes under the panel at the eaves.
Farm buildings and farmhouses are different jobs
A lot of Paulding roofs are on farmsteads. The barn and the machine shed already have exposed-fastener metal on them, and that is the right roof for those buildings — lower cost, goes on fast, and the washers that wear out around year ten to twelve are something you can keep up with on an outbuilding. I have yet to find an exposed fastener design that is impervious to the elements, so go in knowing it has a maintenance schedule.
The house is a different conversation. If you intend to keep it, a concealed-fastener system is what I would put on it. Standing seam on a simple farmhouse gable, formed on site to the full length of the run. An interlocking metal shingle if the house is in town and you want it to look like a shingle roof. Neither has a washer to age.
Who should not be calling us from Paulding
Anyone selling in a few years — asphalt wins that math. Anyone with a single failing detail on an otherwise sound roof — that is a repair, we do not take repair calls, and a repair contractor is the right answer. And anyone who wants shingles again; we install metal only.
The drive
Paulding is roughly 40 minutes from our Fort Wayne office. Fort Wayne is home; northwest Ohio is a regular drive, not the edge of the map. If you want a contractor down the road, there are good ones. If you want metal only, manufacturer-certified installers, and a warranty that follows the house, the drive does not change any of that.
“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.”
