Roof repair in Bethesda.

Bethesda grew up as a Montgomery County streetcar suburb, and its older neighborhoods, Edgemoor the most familiar of them, still hold decades-old Colonial, Arts and Crafts and Georgian homes. Many wear slate, tile, cedar or standing-seam metal, and a leak on one of them is rarely a shingle problem. It is usually a broken slate, a slipped tile, a worn metal seam or flashing that has outlived the roof around it, and the fix has to be made in kind.

Newer luxury rebuilds sit right beside those houses, mostly under architectural asphalt, and they leak in different places: valleys, wall tie-ins and roof penetrations. On both kinds of home, Bethesda's mature, heavily treed lots do steady damage. Leaf litter packs into gutters and valleys and holds moisture against the roof, and limbs come down in storms. We trace the leak to its source, photograph it, and give you a written repair quote before anything is touched.

Bethesda is unincorporated, so permits come from Montgomery County's Department of Permitting Services, not a city office. Small repairs generally don't need one; larger jobs that replace decking or a large share of the roof can, and we check the requirement and pull the permit ourselves when it applies. Many Bethesda neighborhoods, Edgemoor among them, have an HOA or community association with color standards, so we match material and color to the existing roof.

Montgomery County took damaging winds in the June 2012 derecho, and hail returns most summers. Under Bethesda's tree cover, the usual result is a limb through the roof or shingles and slates knocked loose. Wind, hail and fallen-limb damage is often covered by homeowners insurance, and we photograph and document each damaged area for your adjuster before any repair begins.