A dark low-slope roof in full July sun runs far hotter than the air around it, and your air conditioning pays for the difference every hour. A reflective roof sends most of that energy back. The EPA puts the reduction in peak cooling demand at 11 to 27% — and in the City of Chicago, reflective covering isn’t optional on
The economics of residential solar changed on January 1, 2026, and a lot of the advice still circulating hasn’t caught up. The 30% federal tax credit for homeowner-owned systems is gone. That doesn’t make solar shingles a bad idea in Chicago — but it changes the math enough that you should redo it. Here’s the honest version, from a roofer
State Farm paid $558 million in Illinois hail claims in 2025 — third-most of any state — and Illinois has logged more than 500 hail reports so far in 2026, fourth-most in the country. That turns impact-resistant shingles from a national trend piece into a local math problem: does the upgrade pay for itself here? Usually yes, but not for
Standing seam and flat lock are both copper, both last a century, and both get called “copper roofing” — but they are not interchangeable systems. Put the wrong one on a roof and it either leaks or looks wrong. Usually the slope decides it, not the drawing. Here’s what each system actually is, where each belongs, and the question to
A slate roof with slipped slates, a leaking valley, and a stained ceiling looks like a roof at the end of its life. Usually it’s a roof that needs its metalwork renewed — with fifty years of stone still on it. That distinction is the difference between a flashing project and a six-figure tear-off. Here’s how to tell which one
The average natural slate roof lasts 75 to 100+ years, and plenty run past 150. But “average” hides the thing that actually decides it: the grade of the stone. Two slate roofs installed the same year, on the same street, can be 100 years apart in life expectancy. Here are the real numbers — by grade, by type, and by
Most homeowners can’t tell hail damage from ordinary wear, and that’s not a failure of attention — the most consequential hail damage is genuinely invisible from the ground, and sometimes invisible from the roof. Meanwhile the things that look alarming from the driveway are often just a roof getting older. Here’s how the two actually differ, what size hail does
If your roof is over 15 years old, your homeowners policy may not cover it the way it did five years ago — even though nothing about your policy number changed. Illinois carriers have been quietly moving older roofs from replacement cost to actual cash value, and some now require replacement to keep coverage at all. Here’s what changed, what
Here’s the thing most homeowners don’t expect to hear: an ice dam isn’t a roofing problem. It’s a heat problem that shows up on your roof. The ice at your eaves is being manufactured by warm air leaking out of your house — which is why the permanent fix happens in the attic, not on the shingles. Below is the
A TPO roof lasts 15 to 30 years. That’s a twice-as-long spread, and where your building lands in it has almost nothing to do with luck. It comes down to four things: membrane thickness, seam welds, drainage, and whether anybody looks at the roof between leaks. Here’s what each of those does to the number, and how to tell which
