Rental roof repair and flat roofs in College Park (20740)

Many houses in Old Town College Park, Berwyn and Calvert Hills are rented to students during the school year. A roof leak in a rental means calls from tenants, wet ceilings in a bedroom, and pressure to fix it before the next lease starts. We schedule repairs around move-in and move-out, coordinate access directly with tenants when owners ask, and send photo reports after every visit.

Common rental leaks include worn pipe boots, flashing around satellite dish mounts, and gutters overloaded with leaves. Our roof maintenance visits are timed for late spring and after leaf drop, so small issues get fixed before they turn into ceiling repairs.

Landlords who own several houses in the city often ask for one visit that covers all of them. We inspect each roof, rank the repairs by urgency, and price them separately so you can spread the work over a season or two. Houses with active leaks go first, and roofs that only need cleaning and resealing can wait for the summer gap.

• Photo report after each visit for the owner
• Tenant access coordinated in advance
• Repairs scheduled between leases when possible
• Written scope for insurance or property managers

Calvert Hills, Old Town and Berwyn grew from the early 1900s through the 1950s with modest colonials, bungalows and Cape Cods on small lots. Further out, Hollywood and Daniels Park fill in with 1950s and 1960s ramblers and split-levels. These are shingle roofs on fairly simple gables, often with two layers and tired decking.

Cape Cod dormers are the weak spot, as they are all over the region: side walls with missing step flashing and front faces where the dormer roof meets the main roof. On ramblers, the low-pitch back slopes hold water and lose shingle granules quickly. A full shingle reroof usually makes more sense than repeated patches once a roof passes its second decade.

Lakeland, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, has its own mix of small early 1900s houses alongside newer builds. Several older homes there carry low porch roofs and patched flashing, and the narrow streets mean we plan material drops with care.

Along Route 1, the low commercial buildings, restaurants and some older duplexes and garden apartments carry flat or nearly flat roofs. Built-up gravel roofs, aging modified bitumen and patched rubber are common. Ponding near clogged scuppers and leaks around rooftop HVAC units are what we're usually called for.

We take core samples to see how many layers are there and whether the insulation is wet, then compare flat roof repair with a full replacement. For tenants in restaurants or shops, we stage work after hours or on weekends so the business stays open.

Some garden apartment buildings near the campus edge have parapet walls with cracked coping, and water entering at the top of the wall shows up as a stain two floors down. We check coping joints and through-wall flashing before blaming the membrane.

Mature oaks and maples shade much of Calvert Hills and Old Town, and summer storms bring limbs down onto roofs and power lines. We tarp quickly and coordinate with tree crews so permanent repairs can start once debris is gone.

Most reroofs need a permit, generally through the county permit office, and the city may have its own rules for some work. We confirm what applies and handle the application. Owners near the city line may also want to read our Hyattsville roofing page.