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A documented metal roofing project in Zebulon, NC, start to finish.
Metal Roofing in Zebulon, NC
A custom home on a wide, treeless Pilot Ridge lot off Johnson Town Road wanted a roof that would not move in the straight-line wind sweeping the open farmland east of town. We fabricated concealed-fastener standing-seam panels and custom trim to the roofline, set high-temperature underlayment over solid decking, and detailed every penetration to Exposure C open-terrain wind loading. Permitted through the Town of Zebulon Planning Department on its GeoCivix portal, the system is rated for 40 to 70 years.
- Location
- Zebulon, Wake County
- Completed
- May 2025
- Service
- Metal Roofing
The Situation
A custom home on a wide, treeless one-acre lot in Pilot Ridge, off Johnson Town Road on the far eastern edge of Wake County where Zebulon trades the Triangle's oak canopy for open farmland. Zebulon grew up as a railroad and tobacco-market town after 1907 and still sits on the higher ground between the Little River and Moccasin Creek, ringed by the sweet-potato and row-crop fields that replaced the old tobacco allotments. The owners were not chasing a repair. They had watched the wind that sweeps unbroken across those fields chew through two shingle roofs up the road, and they called Summit & Oak to roof once with standing-seam metal and be done. The home falls under the Town of Zebulon Planning Department and the 2018 North Carolina Residential Code, with Wake County performing the building inspection.
The failure mode on an exposed Zebulon roof is wind, and on a metal system the wind does not attack the panel face the way it folds back an asphalt tab. It attacks the attachment. Wind climbs the windward wall and meets the eave at a positive angle of attack, so the highest uplift loads concentrate at the leading edge and along the standing seams, prying at the concealed clips that hold the panels to the deck. A metal roof done wrong on open terrain fails three ways: clips spaced for a sheltered Exposure B lot that peel under the real Exposure C load, a fixed clip used where the long panels need a floating expansion clip, which fatigues the seam as the metal grows and shrinks through the Triangle's temperature swings, and oil-canning where the fasteners are run too tight and the panel buckles. None of that had happened here yet, because the home was getting metal for the first time. The job was to install it so it never does.
The System We Installed
A concealed-fastener standing-seam metal system, fabricated on site to the roofline so the panels run the true length of each plane with no horizontal seam to leak. The crew set a self-adhered high-temperature underlayment across the solid decking, the high-heat membrane a metal roof requires because the panels run hotter than asphalt, then anchored the panels with floating, sliding expansion clips fastened into the deck so the metal can grow and shrink through the seasons without fatiguing the seams. Clip spacing was tightened at the eaves, rakes, and ridge to carry the concentrated perimeter uplift of the Wake County 115 mph ASCE 7-16 design speed under Exposure C open-terrain loading, and the seams were mechanically locked. Custom-fabricated trim, drip edge, and ridge closure finished the system, and every penetration was detailed with a flashing under the metal instead of a bead of sealant on top of it. The finished assembly is rated for a 40-to-70-year service life.
Timeline & Constraints
Free documented inspection within the week of the call, with the deck condition, panel layout, and clip plan measured on-site before any material was ordered, since standing-seam panels are cut to the home's exact roofline and there is no off-the-shelf bundle to pull. Panels were fabricated to length and the install ran two working days with a five-person crew, longer than a one-day shingle re-roof because metal is set, seamed, and trimmed by hand rather than nailed in courses. A passing afternoon shower on the first day cost an hour but no progress, since the dried-in underlayment kept the deck protected overnight. Final magnetic sweep of the wide drive and beds, then the Town of Zebulon permit closed behind the Wake County final inspection.
The Outcome
Before: a custom home on an open acre carrying a shingle roof on the same wind-exposed path that had worn out two roofs up the road. After: a concealed-fastener standing-seam metal roof engineered to Exposure C open-terrain wind loading, with floating clips that let the long panels move through the seasons and a tightened perimeter pattern holding the eaves and ridge where the wind loads concentrate. The owners roofed once for a system rated 40 to 70 years instead of buying their third asphalt roof in two decades. The metal carries the manufacturer's material warranty and our workmanship warranty, which transfers once to a new owner, a durable selling point on a custom Pilot Ridge home that buyers will shop on the strength of a roof built to outlast the mortgage.
- A fully exposed one-acre lot with no windbreak on the storm-facing south and west elevations, so the roof was scoped to Exposure C open-terrain wind loading rather than the sheltered Exposure B used in canopied Triangle towns
- Long unbroken panel runs from ridge to eave on the main planes, which makes thermal expansion and contraction the controlling detail and rules out a fixed clip in favor of a floating, sliding expansion clip
- Solid decking confirmed sound and dry across the field, the flat substrate a standing-seam system needs so the panels lie true and the fasteners bite into wood, not air
- Multiple roof penetrations, the plumbing stacks, a range flue, and a bath fan, each a leak path detailed with a flashing set under the metal rather than surface-caulked over it
- Eave, rake, and ridge edges identified as the highest-uplift zones, where the wind climbs the wall, so clip spacing was tightened at the perimeter for the Wake County 115 mph ASCE 7-16 design gust
- A wide rural lot with deep landscaped beds and an open drive, a larger debris and magnet-sweep field than a tight-subdivision job
Start with a free, documented inspection. We will show you exactly what we found and what it costs, in writing.
“Hail took out half the neighborhood. Summit & Oak had photos in my inbox that same afternoon and met my adjuster on the roof a few days later. New roo…”