Documented Wind-Damage Restoration, North Hills

The Situation

A 1965 split-level on a tree-lined street off Lassiter Mill Road, in the older established core of North Hills where mid-century ranches and split-levels from the 1955-1970 build era sit on the prime lots that now draw custom rebuilds. The owners had lived under the same roof for two decades and called Summit & Oak the morning after a May storm rolled through the Six Forks corridor, worried about a single dark streak they could see from the yard. The home sits within Raleigh city limits, so the work falls under City of Raleigh Development Services and the 2018 North Carolina Residential Code.

The roof was a 3-tab asphalt system roughly 19 years old and into the brittle end of its service life, where the sealant strips lose their grip and the shingle tabs stop riding out gusts. A May straight-line-wind event, the microburst-and-downburst pattern that clusters over the Triangle from April through June, drove uplift across the exposed south and west slopes. The wind broke the weakened seal bonds, folded the tabs back, and left hairline creases across the mat; where tabs tore free entirely it exposed the nailing zone and the underlayment beneath, the kind of damage that is invisible from the driveway but reads clearly from the roof plane.

The System We Installed

Full tear-off to the deck, then a GAF Timberline HDZ architectural shingle system installed to the 2018 NCRC: a self-adhered ice-and-water membrane at the eaves and in every valley, synthetic underlayment across the field replacing the old felt, new aluminum drip edge, and a 6-nail-per-shingle fastening pattern to hold the upgraded wind-resistance class for the Wake County 115 mph ASCE 7-16 design speed. Two soft sheets of decking on the west plane were swapped out and re-nailed with 8d ring-shank nails before the new system went down, and the ridge ventilation was corrected so the assembly breathes the way the code intends.

Timeline & Constraints

Free documented inspection within 24 hours of the call, with all four roof planes shot on dated drone imagery the homeowners could hand to their insurer. The tear-off and full re-roof ran a single working day with a five-person crew once the claim settled; a passing rain band the prior afternoon pushed the start by one morning, so the storm-facing slope was tarped overnight to keep water out of the exposed nailing zone. Final magnetic nail sweep of the drive and beds, and City of Raleigh final inspection cleared after.

The Outcome

Before: a brittle 19-year-old 3-tab roof with creased, torn, and seal-failed shingles and an active interior stain. After: a clean architectural HDZ roof matched to the street's character, with documented wind-resistance back to code and the leak path closed. Throughout, Summit & Oak documented the damage and met the homeowners' adjuster on-site to walk every item, the homeowners filed their own claim and stayed in control of it, the deductible was theirs to pay, and no coverage outcome was promised. The finished roof carries our 25-year workmanship warranty, which transfers once to a new owner, a real signal on a North Hills block where buyers shop for move-in-ready homes.