Roofing in Southeastern PA starts at the township line
The township decides what a new roof needs on paper. The house underneath, usually on its second roof or later, decides the rest once the old layers come off.
Roofing across Southeastern Pennsylvania
Roofing in Southeastern PA
What a roofer in Southeastern PA is working on
In Upper Darby, Drexel Hill, Media, Aston, Glen Mills and the rest of Southeastern PA, Sharpline Home Services, a division of Sharpline Inc., handles leaks, wind and hail damage, tear-offs and full reroofs. Before a reroof we look up the permit rule for your township or borough, because each municipality draws its own line.
The median house in Delaware County was built in 1957, in the middle of the postwar boom that produced the largest single share of the county's housing. Of 229,715 housing units, 22.1 percent were standing before 1940 and 57.6 percent before 1960, while only 3.4 percent went up in 2010 or later. Asphalt shingles last decades, not lifetimes, so unless it wears slate, a house from that era has almost certainly been reroofed, and every owner before you made the choice between tearing off and laying over. That choice is the real unknown on a reroof here. Until the top layer comes off, nobody can say how many coverings are under it, whether the deck is boards or panels, or how long water has been getting into it.
Haverford Township adds a roof addendum of its own
Every roofing permit in Haverford Township comes with a Roof Permit Application Addendum, form V-02-2025. It caps a roof at two layers of shingles and adds wood shake to the coverings that cannot be roofed over. It sets sheathing at a minimum of 1/2 inch on 16-inch rafters, or 5/8 inch with H-clips on 24-inch rafters, calls for drip edge at every eave, and has the applicant certify that all decayed sheathing will be replaced. Anyone roofing over dimensional shingles must give the owner a township letter on the risks. Torch-down work needs a fire extinguisher on the roof and propane taken down every day, and the permit must be posted in view of the street.
Attached houses turn the party wall into a roofing detail
About a third of all housing units in the county, 32.0 percent or 73,436 of them, are single-family attached: twins and rowhouses. In Upper Darby Township that rises to 47.7 percent, against 22.0 percent detached, and the township's median house dates to 1948. Haverford runs the other way at 68.2 percent detached. The county's housing plan describes its older eastern and southern neighborhoods as having many twins and rows, mostly built between the late 1800s and the 1950s. Where two houses sit under one roof, a reroof on one half stops at the party wall, and the joint between the new covering and the neighbor's older one is detailed and flashed as its own piece of work rather than left as a butt seam.
A second layer decides recover or tear-off
Pennsylvania's current residential code makes tear-off to the deck the default for a reroof. A new layer over the old one, a roof-over, is not allowed where the existing roof already carries two or more applications of any covering. On a house that has been reroofed before, that condition is the one to settle first, because it decides whether the job is a recover or a full tear-off.
Storm wind here arrives in short, local bursts
NOAA's storm records for Delaware County list 161 thunderstorm wind reports on 54 separate days between 2016 and 2025. On April 4, 2025 a downburst crossed Nether Providence Township and Media Borough with estimated peak winds of 95 to 105 mph, and a building at Jasper and Monroe Streets in Media lost much of its roof covering. On Halloween night in 2019 an EF2 tornado with estimated peak winds of 120 mph touched down in the Glen Mills section of Thornbury Township, on a path half a mile long, and significantly damaged three houses. After a burst like the one in Media, check the ceiling under the storm-facing slope and the attic for daylight before deciding the roof came through.
Southeastern PA roofing questions
Straight answers.
Which Delaware County townships require a permit for a partial reroof?
It changes at every municipal line. Aston's list names even a single-layer reroof and new gutters. Radnor and Upper Darby let you replace up to 25 percent of the roof area in any 12-month period without a permit. Marple lists that same 25 percent replacement as permit work, and fines work done without a required permit 100 percent of the permit cost, plus the permit fee. For a full replacement, expect a permit anywhere in the county.
Does Delaware County get hail big enough to damage a roof?
Yes. NOAA logged 26 hail reports in the county from 2016 through 2025, and 12 of them were quarter-size, one inch across, or larger. The largest was 1.50 inches in Morton on May 20, 2022, with 1.25 inches recorded in Rutledge on that date and in Grace Park on April 4, 2025. Hail around an inch can bruise asphalt shingles and loosen granules without leaving anything visible from the ground, so the time to have a roof looked at is after the storm, not after the first leak.
Does my township require ice-and-water shield on a new roof?
Some write it down. Radnor's local climate table marks an ice barrier as required, and Haverford's roof addendum sets the same minimum: membrane reaching at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall. Where a township's table is silent, settle the question in the scope of work before the job starts.
Who sets the design wind speed for a new roof in Radnor or Upper Darby?
The township does, through its climate table, and each one sets its own design wind speed. Radnor Township's published table, adopted in January 2023 under the 2018 code, sets 115 mph, along with a 25 psf ground snow load, a severe weathering rating and a 36-inch frost line. Upper Darby does not publish its values and sends that question to its Director of Licenses and Inspection. Ask the township office for the figure before materials are ordered, and have the roofer put it on the written scope.
Does Haverford Township's historic list affect a roof replacement?
It can. If the house is on Haverford's Historic Resource Inventory, the township's preservation ordinance treats covering any portion of its roof as demolition, and no historic resource can be demolished in whole or in part without a permit from the Board of Commissioners, reviewed by the Historical Commission. The roof permit addendum asks the question directly, so check the inventory before a contract is signed. Media Borough runs a separate historic-district review, covered on the <a href="/service-areas/southeastern-pa/media/">Media page</a>, so check which district applies before the covering is chosen.
Around Southeastern PA
Roofing near you.
Start with the township, then the roof.
Send the address, a few photos taken from the ground and whether the house is a twin, and we will reply with what the roof and the permit involve.