Roofing in Delaware County

It depends on the age of the roof, how much of it has failed, where the leak is, and how many times it has already been patched. A ten-year-old roof with a failed vent boot needs a boot. A twenty-five-year-old roof that has been repaired in four places is telling you something different.

The honest answer is that it cannot be settled from the ground, which is why the estimate involves getting on the roof. There is a fuller explanation of how that call gets made on the repair-or-replace page.

Anyone who gives you a number before seeing the roof is guessing. Cost is driven by the roof area, the pitch, how many layers have to come off, how much decking turns out to be bad, and how much flashing and detail work there is.

What can be shown honestly is what actual customers have reported paying. On Angi, recent J. Parker jobs range from around $600 for a repair to about $12,000 for a replacement, with several in the $2,000–$5,000 range. Those are individual customers' own reported figures for their own jobs, not a price list — but they are real, and they are more than most contractors will publish.

J. Parker Contracting holds Pennsylvania Home Improvement Contractor registration #PA113030. In Pennsylvania that registration is a legal requirement for almost all residential home improvement work, and it is worth checking for any contractor you are considering — you can look up any registration number free on the Attorney General's website.

Pennsylvania registration is not the same thing as a trade license, and no contractor should imply that it is. What it does mean is that the contractor is on the state register and has filed the insurance the state requires to be registered.

J. Parker Contracting is fully insured. Ask for the certificate before work starts — from any contractor, including this one. It should come from the insurer or the agent rather than as a photocopy, and you can ask to be named on it.

Under Pennsylvania's Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, a home improvement contract over $500 has to be in writing and has to include specific things: the contractor's registration number, the full scope of work, the total price, approximate start and completion dates, and the contractor's name, address and phone number.

You also get three business days to cancel a home improvement contract signed at your home, and that right has to be stated in the contract itself. If a contractor will not put the job in writing, that is not a paperwork quirk — it is a contractor operating outside the law.

Yes. If a roof is actively leaking, call rather than emailing — the phone is much faster. Emergency work usually means making the roof safe and watertight first and doing the permanent repair once conditions allow.

What you will not find on this site is a promised response time. Whether someone can be on your roof within a couple of hours depends on the weather and on how many other roofs are leaking in the same storm. You will get a straight answer on the phone about when James can actually get there.

Yes. Workmanship and materials are guaranteed, and the terms come with your written estimate rather than being advertised as a headline number.

That is deliberate. A warranty is only worth the document behind it, and a contractor who leads with a number but will not put the terms in your contract is selling you the number, not the cover. Ask to see the wording before you sign — with anyone.

Yes, and it comes up in customer reviews more than almost anything else. The grounds, beds and gutters get a magnetic sweep for nails before the crew leaves. One customer put it better than we could: “I went outside after the roofers had gone in my bare feet and not a nail was to be found.”

Most single-family roofs in this area are a one to two day job once the crew is on site. A larger or steeper roof, or one with several layers to strip, can run longer — a customer whose roof turned out to have four layers on it still had it finished in a day, but that meant the crew staying late to beat forecast rain.

The bigger variable is scheduling, not the work itself. Roofing is weather-dependent, and a wet week moves everybody.

Yes — EPDM rubber, polyglass SBS modified bitumen, roll roofing where the budget requires it, and protective coatings over sound but ageing membranes. Flat and low-slope work is a significant part of what this business does, because so much of the housing stock around here has a low-slope section somewhere.

That includes Philadelphia rowhome roofs, which are their own particular job — parapets, party walls and coping rather than valleys and ridges.

Delaware County, and parts of Philadelphia. The business describes its own coverage as all of Delaware County; the town pages on this site cover Springfield, Havertown, Broomall, Media, Drexel Hill, Newtown Square and Philadelphia because those are where there is work to point at.

If you are just outside that and not sure, call and ask rather than assuming.

No. Estimates are free, and James does them himself rather than sending a commissioned salesperson. There is no presentation, no same-day discount and no reason for the visit to take two hours.