Redding & Vaux
(610) 555-0182

Stefko Boulevard · Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Est. 1994

We work on the one part of your house you never see.

Tear-offs, leak repair, storm work and the copper and flashing most roofing companies hand to somebody else. We measure the roof before we put a number on it, and the number we give you is the number you pay.

See what it costs Call (610) 555-0182
Cutaway through a roof slope: the deck, the underlayment over it, and five shingle courses fanned up the slope, with a dimension marking the five and five eighths inch exposure between two course butts. 5⅝″ EXPOSURE DECK & UNDERLAYMENT COURSE 5

Every course covers the nail line of the one below it. Get that overlap wrong by half an inch and the roof leaks in year six instead of year thirty — and nobody finds out until it does.

Exposure
5⅝″
Nails per shingle
6, in the nail zone
Ice & water
6 ft up from the eave
Wind rating
130 mph as installed
A six-person crew stripping the old shingles off a brick house, with underlayment rolls half unrolled, two ladders up and tarps spread on the lawn below.

Tear-off, deck check and dry-in, same day Everything off the lawn before we leave Northampton & Lehigh counties

Course 01 · What we do

Four kinds of call, and we will tell you which one you have.

Most people who call us do not know whether they need a repair or a roof, and a fair number have been told they need a roof when they do not. We go up, we photograph what is there, and we say which of these four it is before anybody talks about money.

Full tear-off

Everything down to the deck, rotten boards replaced, ice and water at the eaves and the valleys, and a new roof over the whole thing. Two to three days on a normal house.

Leak repair

Finding it is the job; fixing it is usually an hour. Nine out of ten leaks we chase turn out to be flashing, a pipe boot or a nail that backed out — not the shingles.

Storm damage

Wind and hail, tarped the day you call if it is open. We document it the way an adjuster needs it documented, and we will tell you when a claim is not worth filing.

Gutters & metal

Seamless aluminium run on site, and copper for the houses that deserve it. The soldering is done by us, on our own bench, not bought in.

Course 02 · How a roof is actually built

Six layers. You pay for all six and you can see one.

This is the part that makes a roof cheap or expensive, and it is the part nobody can inspect from the driveway. When a bid comes in four thousand dollars under everybody else’s, one of these six is missing.

  1. The deck½″ plywood or 1×6 boards

    Anything soft gets cut out and replaced. On a Bethlehem house from the 1920s this is usually a few boards near the chimney, and occasionally a whole plane.

  2. Ice and water shieldEaves, valleys, penetrations

    A self-adhering rubber membrane that seals around the nails. This is what stops an ice dam in February from coming through your bedroom ceiling.

  3. UnderlaymentSynthetic, over the whole deck

    The white sheet in the photograph up top. It keeps the house dry between the tear-off and the new roof, and it is the second line for the next thirty years.

  4. Starter courseEaves and rakes

    A sealed strip under the first visible row. Left out — and it often is — the wind takes the bottom row off first and then everything above it.

  5. The fieldArchitectural shingle, 5⅝″ exposure

    The part you can see. Nailed in the manufacturer’s nail zone, six per shingle where the wind rating requires it, never four to go faster.

  6. Ridge and ventilationContinuous vent + intake

    A roof that cannot breathe cooks its own shingles from underneath. Half the “bad shingle” jobs we are called to look at are actually a ventilation problem.

Close macro of asphalt shingle surface: crushed orange and charcoal mineral granules embedded in the asphalt, with the edge of the course above out of focus.

The colour of this page is this: crushed stone, orange and charcoal, pressed into the asphalt. When those granules end up in your gutter, the roof is telling you how much life it has left.

Course 03 · What it costs

We measure the roof before we price it.

Nobody can price a roof over the phone, and anybody who does is either guessing high or planning to find something on day two. What we can do is tell you the range your house is in, so you know whether to keep reading.

One trip, one problem

Repair call

$385flat, up to two hours on the roof

  • We find the leak and fix it the same visit where we can.
  • Photographs of what we found, sent before we invoice.
  • Credited in full if you replace the roof within the year.

The usual job

Tear-off and replace

$9,400–$16,80018 to 28 squares, architectural shingle

  • All six layers above, itemised on the quote by name.
  • Rotten decking at cost, with the old board kept to show you.
  • Magnet run over the whole property twice before we go.
  • Ten years on our labour, in writing, transferable once.

The work we do not sub out

Copper & standing seam

from $110a linear foot, formed and soldered here

  • Valleys, bay roofs, dormer cheeks and chimney crickets.
  • Sixteen ounce copper, locked seams, lead-free solder.
  • Outlives three asphalt roofs, which is the whole argument.

The inspection is free and it is not a sales visit. If your roof has eight good years left we will say so, put it in writing, and you can call us in eight years. We would rather lose the job than sell you one you did not need — this is a town where people talk to their neighbours.

Course 04 · Storm damage and the insurance company

What we will do, and the one thing we will not.

A house stripped back to bare roof boards with scaffolding along the front, plywood stacked on the platform and two workers on the deck.

A storm job that turned into a re-deck. We found it on the tear-off, stopped, photographed it and called the owner before we bought a single board.

After a bad night in the Lehigh Valley there will be people knocking on your door with a clipboard. Some of them are roofers. A lot of them are not, and by the time the cheque clears they are two states away.

  • We tarp an open roof the day you call, before anything is agreed, and that is not billed if you go with somebody else.
  • We photograph and measure the damage the way an adjuster needs it, and we will stand on the roof with yours if you want us there.
  • We will tell you plainly when the damage is under your deductible and a claim would cost you more than it returns.
  • What we will not do is waive your deductible, or write an estimate for damage we did not find. That is insurance fraud, it is your name on the claim, and anyone offering it is telling you what they are.

Course 05 · The metal, which is where the leaks are

Shingles almost never fail. The joins do.

A roof is a field of shingles interrupted by chimneys, walls, pipes and valleys, and water finds every one of those interruptions. That is metal work, it is slower than laying shingle, and it is the first thing a cheap bid quietly leaves out — new roof, old flashing, tar over the top.

We form our own. There is a brake and a soldering bench in the shop on Stefko, and the copper that goes on your valley was cut and folded there by somebody whose name is in the next section.

  • Step flashing woven into the courses, one piece per course — not a single bent length run up the wall.
  • Chimneys get a counter-flashing cut into the mortar joint and sealed, not caulk smeared against the brick.
  • Pipe boots in lead or steel, because the rubber ones are what fails at year twelve on almost every roof we open.
Close view along a soldered copper valley between two planes of charcoal shingles: the seam runs down the centre, half the sheet still bronze and half turned soft green.

A soldered valley about fifteen years in. The green is not damage — it is the copper sealing itself, and it is the colour we took this whole page from.

Course 06 · Who is actually on your roof

The same seven people, and two of them own the company.

We run one crew. That is the whole business decision: it means we can only do about forty roofs a year, and it means the person who quoted your job is on the ladder when it is done.

Dell Redding

Owner · estimator

Started as a labourer on Elm Street in 1994 and bought the truck in 2003. Does every measurement himself, which is why the quote takes two days instead of ten minutes.

Marguerite Vaux

Owner · sheet metal

Twenty-two years on the brake. Everything copper that leaves this shop went through her hands, and she will happily tell you why your last flashing job failed.

Ivan Sekulić

Foreman · tear-offs

Runs the roof while it is open, which is the job nobody sees: keeping the house dry between the old roof coming off and the new one going on.

  • PA contractor registration PA0Redding-0114, carried on every truck. Ask any roofer for theirs; it is a legal requirement in this state and it is free to check.
  • Liability and workers’ compensation both current. We send the certificates with the quote without being asked, because the alternative is your homeowner’s policy.
  • No subcontracted crews. If somebody is on your roof, they are on our payroll.

Course 07 · The warranty, and what voids it

Two warranties, and only one of them is ours.

Every roof comes with a manufacturer’s warranty on the shingle and a workmanship warranty from whoever installed it. They cover completely different things, and the second one is the only one that has ever mattered on a job we have been called back to.

  • Ours: ten years on labour, transferable once if you sell the house. If water gets in through something we did, we come back and it costs you nothing.
  • Theirs: the shingle, typically thirty to fifty years and prorated, which means year twenty pays a fraction of year two. Read that table before it sells you.
  • What voids the manufacturer’s: bad ventilation, the wrong nail count, and a second roof laid over the first. Two of those three are decisions the installer made and you never saw.
  • We register your shingle warranty for you and email you the certificate. It takes us ten minutes and a surprising number of roofers never do it.

Course 08 · Where we work and when

Northampton and Lehigh, and the shop is on Stefko.

  • Mon–Fri7:00 AM – 4:30 PM on the roof
  • SaturdayEstimates only, 8:00 AM – 1:00 PM
  • SundayEmergency tarping only
  • Storm lineAnswered until 9:00 PM every night
  • SeasonWe do not lay shingle below 40°F; we will tarp and book you for spring
Shop
1120 Stefko Blvd, Bethlehem, PA 18017
Towns
Bethlehem, Allentown, Easton, Nazareth, Hellertown, Emmaus
Estimates
Free, and we leave the photographs with you
Lead time
Three to five weeks in season; repairs inside a week
Payment
A third at start, the rest when the magnet run is done
Registration
PA0Redding-0114

Course 09 · What people ask on the driveway

Answered here so the estimate visit can be about your roof.

Can you just go over the old shingles?
We can, it is legal for one layer, and we almost never recommend it. You save perhaps fifteen per cent, nobody looks at the deck, the new roof runs hotter and the shingle warranty usually will not apply. When we do agree to it, we put in writing why.
How do I know if I need a roof or a repair?
Granules in the gutters, shingles that curl at the corners and bare spots on the south slope mean the roof is near the end. One wet patch on a ceiling after a storm usually means flashing. We will go up and tell you which, free, and put it in writing either way.
Why is your quote higher than the one I got last week?
Take both quotes and look for the six layers listed in Course 02, plus new flashing and the nail count. The gap is almost always ice and water shield, starter course, or reusing the old metal. If the other quote has all six and is still lower, take it — and tell us, because we would like to know.
What happens to my lawn and my garden?
Tarps over the beds, plywood on the walkway, a dumpster on boards rather than on your driveway slab, and a rolling magnet over the whole property twice before we leave. If you find a nail after that, call us and we will come back and sweep again.
Do you take a deposit?
A third when the material is delivered, and the balance when the job is finished and cleaned up. Never money up front to hold a date. If a roofer wants half before anything arrives at your house, that is worth a second thought.
It is January and my roof is leaking. Now what?
We tarp it, usually the same day, and we do interior repairs and flashing work through the winter. Shingle does not seal properly below about forty degrees, so a full roof gets booked for spring — and the tarp holds until then. We have had them hold through three months of Lehigh Valley weather.

Have somebody look at it before it rains again.

The estimate is free, it takes about forty minutes, and you get the photographs whether or not you hire us. If the roof is fine we will tell you that and go away.

(610) 555-0182