Roofing Contractor in Markham & Unionville

Roofing in Markham: what we see most

Milliken, Berczy and Wismer were built in waves — late 80s, late 90s, mid-2000s — and each wave is now reaching the age where the original shingles give out. Two-storey houses dominate, which means long rafter runs, big south-facing slopes that bake in summer, and eaves that ice up in winter. Cornell is newer and denser: narrow lots, steep pitches, dormers and porches designed to look traditional, with a lot of flashing per square foot of roof. Then there's Unionville and Markham Village, where the housing stock goes back to the 1800s — frame and brick houses with steep gables, wood soffits, chimneys that predate the furnace, and additions from every decade since. Cachet and the Thornhill side of Markham add larger custom homes with complex rooflines.

The problem that brings Markham homeowners to us most often in winter is ice damming. Two-storey houses with attic insulation but poor ventilation let heat escape through the roof deck, snow melts from underneath, and the water refreezes at the cold eaves into a ridge of ice. Meltwater behind that ridge backs up under the shingles and shows up as a stain on the second-floor ceiling or above a window. Summer brings wind and hail across the open stretches north of 16th Avenue, and the heat on those wide south slopes ages shingles faster than the rating on the bundle suggests.

On a heritage house in Unionville the roof, the chimney, the masonry and the foundation are all the same age and tend to fail together — a chimney that needs repointing is usually sitting on flashing that needs replacing above a basement that gets damp in April. We handle all of it as one job, with one crew and one written quote, so nothing falls between two contractors. The owner does the inspection himself and writes the quote. No one is paid to sell you a roof.