Pro24 Contracting repairs and replaces roofs, siding, windows and gutters on Minneapolis houses. City work is a different trade from suburban work, and most of the difference is the age of the housing and the width of the lot. Call 612-235-8696 and we will come out and look.
Close to half the housing predates 1940
St. Anthony was platted on the east bank in 1849 and Minneapolis on the west in 1854. The two merged on April 9, 1872. The population peaked at 521,718 in 1950 and stands around 429,600 today, which means the city was substantially built before most of its suburbs existed.
Roughly forty-three percent of Minneapolis housing was built before 1940. On a house that old, the roof is rarely the only question. Decking that has been nailed through four times, flashing that has been painted over for decades, chimney and wall transitions that were detailed by hand, and an attic that was never vented to any modern standard all come up once the shingles are off. We would rather find them on the estimate than on a change order.
Bungalows, dormers and one-and-a-half stories
The streetcar neighborhoods are where most of this stock sits. Longfellow was largely built from 1906 through the 1920s in Craftsman bungalow style. Three quarters of Kingfield's single-family homes went up before 1920, with the main wave from 1903 to 1914. Linden Hills grew along the Como and Harriet streetcar line, and its commercial corridor filled in during the 1920s. Northeast, which was the separate city of St. Anthony until the merger, runs to modest Victorians and walk-up apartments. Nokomis and Como carry the same eras.
A one-and-a-half-story bungalow with dormers is a more complicated roof than its footprint suggests. More valleys, more wall-to-roof transitions, steeper pitch, and dormer cheeks that have to be flashed properly or they will leak into a finished upstairs room. We price that roof for what it is.
Ice dams are a design problem, not a weather problem
A finished attic or a knee-wall bedroom over an original 1910 framing plan is where ice dams come from. Warm air escapes into the roof assembly, snow melts high up, the water refreezes at the cold eave, and it backs up under the shingles until it finds the plaster.
Heat cable treats the symptom. The repair that lasts is air sealing the bypasses, getting intake and exhaust ventilation to balance, and carrying ice and water shield far enough up from the eave and through the valleys to cover the freeze line. If a Minneapolis roof is coming off anyway, that is the moment to fix it, and it costs much less done then than done on its own.
Forty-foot lots, alleys and a street use permit
The standard Minneapolis residential lot is forty feet wide by a hundred and twenty deep, and some older platted blocks are narrower than that. There is often no driveway, and access runs off the alley.
That changes the job before it starts. A dumpster or a storage container placed in the street or the public right of way needs a city street use permit, pulled by a licensed contractor working with a licensed hauler. One in your own driveway does not. We sort out which applies to your address, handle the permit when it is needed, protect the neighbor's property line on a lot this tight, and magnet-sweep the alley and the yard at the end of every working day.
Storm damage in the city
Minneapolis takes severe weather like the rest of the metro. The National Weather Service recorded an EF1 tornado on May 22, 2011 that crossed the Mississippi at the Camden Bridge and tore through North Minneapolis, and roof damage from that event was still being worked through years later.
We inspect and photograph hail and wind damage with a reference scale in frame and write it up so an adjuster can act on it. If a claim is already open we will meet them at the house. Our storm damage and insurance claims pages set out how the process runs.
Call 612-235-8696 or use the contact page with the address and we will confirm the next inspection window. We also work west in Excelsior and south in Burnsville, and the full list of cities is on the service areas page.