Fullerton Roof Pros: Roof Replacement, Leak Repair & Period Roofs
Expert residential and commercial roofing services in Fullerton, from 1920s clay tile to post-war composition. Free on-roof inspection with photographs and a written scope.
Licensed, insured and bonded California C-39 roofing contractor·Free on-roof inspection with attic access and photographs·Re-decking priced by the sheet, with the count on the estimate·Se Habla Español
Fullerton Roof Pros is a licensed, insured roofing contractor working across Fullerton and north Orange County on roof replacement, roof leak repair, clay and concrete tile, standing seam and flat-lock metal, low-slope modified bitumen, chimney flashing and commercial parapet work. We quote from the roof and the attic, not the driveway.
The housing here is what makes the work different. A large share of these houses predate plywood, so the covering sits on spaced 1x6 skip sheathing or straight 1x8 shiplap, the eaves are open with shaped rafter tails and no soffit, and the original assembly was wood shake or two-piece mission barrel tile. All three change what can be fastened, ventilated and matched.
So every estimate we write separates the roof from the deck, prices re-decking by the sheet with the count on the page, names the underlayment and the Class A listing, and includes the ventilation arithmetic. Where a repair is the better purchase than a replacement, we put that in writing with photographs instead of quietly quoting the bigger job. Call (866) 739-0853 for a free inspection.
What Fullerton Roof Pros Handles in Fullerton, CA
Residential Roof Installation
A new roof and a replacement roof are not the same job. This page covers the first one: new construction, a second-story addition, a dormer cut into a 1950s hip, a garage turned into living space, and a deck going back to bare plywood because the sheathing is being replaced.
Commercial Roof Installation
Downtown Fullerton and the older commercial strips along Harbor and Commonwealth are largely 1920s and 1930s masonry buildings with brick parapets and low-slope roofs behind them. On those buildings the membrane is rarely the problem.
Roof Replacement
Replacing a roof on a house built before 1945 is two jobs sold as one: the covering you picked, and the deck underneath that nobody has looked at since the last tear-off. We price those two things separately, in writing, before anything comes off.
Roof Repair
Before anyone climbs onto a Fullerton roof that might still be covered, one question is worth asking: who installed it, and what does the paperwork say about somebody else touching it? Manufacturer coverage on a residential roof is conditional, not absolute.
Asphalt Shingle Roofs
Composition shingle is the cheapest way to make an old Fullerton house look wrong. It is also, specified properly, the most sensible roof many of these houses will ever have.
Cool Roof Installation
In north Orange County the color of a roof is often settled by a committee before anyone discusses physics. That order is backwards and still survivable, because Fullerton's reroof threshold is modest enough to live inside most approved palettes.
Fascia & Soffit
On most modern houses this is a wrap-and-vent job. On the houses here it is carpentry, because the eave is a designed architectural feature with shaped rafter tails hanging out in the open where everyone can see them.
Flat & Low-Slope Roofing
Almost every period house here has grown a flat roof at some point. A porch got enclosed in 1958, a back bedroom went on in 1963, a carport became a laundry room.
Hail Damage Roofing
Hail happens here, and it is small and infrequent. Which is why most of what gets called hail damage on a sixty-year-old Fullerton roof turns out to be something else entirely, and telling the difference before anyone files a claim saves people real money and real trouble.
Insurance Claim Help
Filing a claim on an old roof is not free, and that is the part nobody explains. Sometimes the right advice we can give you is to pay for the repair yourself and leave the policy alone.
Metal Roofing
Metal belongs on these houses, just usually not where the brochure puts it. A broad standing-seam field on a 1920s bungalow reads as an agricultural building.
Roof Leak Repair
On a house with 1x board decking, the stain on your ceiling is almost never under the hole. Water lands on a board, runs along the grain until something stops it, and drips twelve feet from where it got in.
Roof Skylight Installation
Original houses here were not built with skylights and the framing shows it. Before anyone talks about glass, we go into the attic and work out whether a skylight is a morning's work or a framing project, because on these roofs it is usually the second one.
Storm Damage Restoration
Old roofs in north Orange County rarely fail during the first hour of a storm. They fail on day three of an atmospheric river, when the underlayment has been saturated for seventy hours, every lap is holding water, and there is nowhere left for it to go.
Tile Roofing
The hardest part of tile work on a period house is not the roof. It is finding fourteen tiles that match a profile the factory stopped extruding in 1954, and deciding what to do when you cannot.
Wind Damage Roofing
Santa Ana winds arrive from the northeast, down through Carbon Canyon and the Chino Hills gap. Every roof in north Orange County was detailed for the ordinary onshore breeze, which comes from the opposite direction.
Why Fullerton Chooses Fullerton Roof Pros
- ✓We open a plane and photograph the deck before quoting, so the number is not a guess
- ✓Roof price and re-deck price are separate lines, with a per-sheet figure written down
- ✓Period profiles matched from architectural salvage before new tile is ever specified
- ✓Open-eave houses get roof-edge intake ventilation, not soffit vents that do not exist
- ✓Shaped rafter tails repaired as joinery from a template, not boxed in to save labor
- ✓We name the cheaper option when it is the right one, including doing nothing this year
About Fullerton Roof Pros in Fullerton, CA
Fullerton Roof Pros works on the roofs north Orange County actually has: pre-war bungalows and Spanish Colonials on board decking, post-war ranches on plywood, and everything that has been added to both since. We are licensed, insured and bonded, we pull our own permits, and we photograph the work as it is built rather than describing it afterwards.
Our estimates are written to be argued with. The roof price and the re-deck price are separate, the sheet count we expect is on the page with a per-sheet figure, the underlayment and Class A assembly are named by listing rather than by brand, and the ventilation arithmetic is attached. If a detail on your roof is going to be the weak point, it is in the scope.
There are jobs we tell people not to buy. If your roof has eight good years left, we say so and would rather you call us in eight years. If a coating will fail because the built-up roof under it is already holding water, we will not sell it. And if a claim on your old roof would pay less than it risks, we will show you that before you phone your carrier.
Where We Work
Fullerton Roof Pros serves Fullerton, CA and surrounding communities including:
How It Works
On-Roof Inspection, Attic Included
We walk the roof with foam pads and walk boards, photograph every detail, and go into the attic to read the deck from below: board width and spacing, nail withdrawal, tracking marks and moisture at the rafter tails. Ten minutes in an attic explains more than an hour on a slope.
Layer Count and Deck Test Cut
A small cut at an inconspicuous spot tells us how many applications are on the roof and what sits directly on the deck. That count decides whether an overlay is even permitted, or whether the job is a full tear-off, and it is the number that moves your budget most.
Written Scope, Priced by Plane and Sheet
You get a scope broken out by roof plane, the underlayment and assembly listing named, the expected re-deck sheet count with a per-sheet price, and the ventilation calculation. Repairs are quoted alongside replacement so you can see both numbers and choose.
Install, Photograph, Close the Permit
Tear-off in sections on board decking, dry-in the same day, then the finish work with every detail photographed as it is built. Permits are pulled and closed out, tile is stacked and relaid rather than left loose, and the site is magnet-swept before we leave.
Recent Projects Across north Orange County
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What Fullerton Customers Say
They found the leak twelve feet from the ceiling stain, in a valley on the other side of the ridge, and explained why water travels along board decking. Two other companies had quoted a full replacement. The repair was a half day.
The estimate had the roof on one line and the plywood overlay on another, with the sheet count and a price per sheet. They hit four sheets over the estimate and charged exactly what the paper said. No drama at all.
Our 1926 house has open eaves and two rotted rafter tails. They cut a template off a good one and scarfed in new redwood so you cannot see the joint from the sidewalk. Nobody else offered to do anything but box them in.
They talked us out of filing a claim, showed us the depreciation math on a 40 year old roof, and did the repair for less than our deductible would have been after settlement. Honest people are hard to find in roofing.
Commercial Roofing for Fullerton's Older Masonry Buildings
Downtown Fullerton and the older frontages along Harbor Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue are largely 1920s and 1930s brick buildings with parapets, interior drains and low-slope roofs behind them, and the leaks on those buildings usually start in the wall rather than the membrane.
We rebuild base flashing and let counterflashing into a raked mortar joint instead of caulking it to the brick face, put a coping on the parapet that sheds outward with a drip on both sides, and check what an unreinforced parapet is doing structurally before anything is bonded to it.
Drainage gets the same attention: cast iron leaders scoped where access allows, clamping rings and sumps replaced, overflow scuppers added where a parapet turns the roof into a basin, and tapered insulation set so water reaches the drain.
We also serve the industrial belts in Santa Fe Springs and Buena Park, work around occupied tenants with agreed staging and noise windows, and write the scope by roof area so a multi-building owner can phase the spend.
- ✓Parapet base flashing and let-in counterflashing on brick
- ✓Coping and cap replacement with drip edges both sides
- ✓Unreinforced masonry parapet assessment before reroofing
- ✓Interior drain, sump and clamping ring replacement
- ✓Overflow scuppers where parapets impound water
- ✓Tapered insulation to give a dead-flat deck real fall
- ✓Adhered and mechanically attached TPO on clean fields
- ✓Modified bitumen where curbs and foot traffic are heavy
- ✓Coating systems to extend a sound roof another decade
- ✓Phased written scopes by roof area for multi-building owners
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know whether my roof is on plywood or skip sheathing?
From the attic, in about a minute. Look up at the underside of the roof: if you see a continuous surface, it is plywood or OSB. If you see individual boards with daylight gaps between them, that is skip sheathing, and if you see wide boards butted tight together, that is straight shiplap decking.
Most Fullerton houses built before the war have one of the two board decks. It matters because a nailed composition shingle needs continuous support, so a shake-original house on skip sheathing needs a plywood overlay before a shingle roof can go on it at all. We check this on the first visit and photograph it for you.
Can I put a composition shingle roof over my existing wood shake?
No, and any quote that offers to is a problem. Standard reroofing practice does not allow recovering over wood shake, and there are two good physical reasons beyond that. Shake surfaces are uneven, so the new shingles telegraph every ridge and cup underneath them, and the fasteners land in spaced sheathing rather than solid deck.
The correct sequence is full tear-off of the shake, then a plywood or OSB overlay across the skip sheathing, then underlayment and the new covering. It costs more than an overlay and it is the only version that lasts.
My clay tile is from the 1920s and several are cracked. Can they be matched?
Often, but not from a supplier. Two-piece mission barrel tile from that era came from Southern California yards with their own molds and their own clay, so color and profile vary even within one original roof and modern reproductions look like reproductions next to it.
We source from architectural salvage yards and from tear-offs, and we also take matched tile off your own rear elevation or garage, which nobody sees from the street, and put the closest new profile back there. If we cannot get enough matched tile, we tell you before you commit rather than after.
Does a reroof in Fullerton need a permit and an inspection?
Yes. Reroofing is permitted work here as it is throughout Orange County, and we pull the permit rather than ask you to. The inspection points are the ones you would expect: a nailing and dry-in inspection once the deck is on and the underlayment is down, and a final once the covering is complete. Two practical consequences worth knowing.
Work has to stop and wait for the inspector at dry-in, which shapes the schedule, and a closed-out permit is a document your buyer's agent will ask for later, so it is worth having in the file.
How long does a reroof take on a 1,600 square foot bungalow?
Three to five working days for a straightforward composition roof with a plywood overlay, and longer if the deck turns out worse than the test cut suggested or the weather makes dry-in unwise. Tile takes longer than composition, and a relay where we lift, stack and reset your existing tile over new underlayment usually runs a week.
Period houses are slower than tract houses for one specific reason: old 1x boards split when staples are pried out, so tear-off happens in short sections rather than long sheets.
Should I file an insurance claim on a 50-year-old roof?
Sometimes the honest answer is no. Many California policies now settle older roofs on actual cash value rather than replacement cost, so depreciation and your deductible can absorb most of a repair-sized claim.
And a claim inspection on a much-patched old roof, or an original wood shake roof, can lead to a re-rating or a non-renewal in a market where replacement coverage is already hard to get.
We will document the damage either way and give you the arithmetic before you call your carrier, so the decision is yours with real numbers in front of you.