The lakes and camps specialty

Lake house and camp roofing in New Hampshire

A tenth of New Hampshire's housing is seasonal, and about 70 percent of those camps and lake houses sit in Belknap, Carroll, Coos, and Grafton counties, per a NH Business Review analysis of Census data. Their owners plan roofs differently: often from another state, always for a building nobody watches in winter. Granite State Metal Roofing matches those owners with independent local professionals who work the lakes and mountain towns.

The unwatched-building problem

A year-round house gets its warning signs noticed: the ceiling stain, the ice ridge over the porch, the drip in the mudroom. A camp closed up in October reports nothing until May, and by then a small asphalt leak has had seven months of freeze-thaw to work with. Snow load does the rest; the lakes and mountain counties sit in the upper half of the state's design range, which runs from about 50 pounds per square foot in the south to more than 120 in the high country, per CRREL TR-02-6.

Standing seam converts the roof from a thing you monitor into a thing you scheduled once. Snow sheds instead of loading the frame of an older camp, there are no exposed fasteners backing out between visits, and the panel system typically outlives the mortgage. The system details live on the standing seam page; what follows is the seasonal-specific part.

Designing for a building that shed snow alone

• Retention over everything that matters. With nobody there to shovel a path or move the grill, snow guards go over doorways, the deck, the oil fill, the propane regulator, and the heat pump as a design rule. See snow guards and ice dam protection.
• Shedding paths that clear themselves. Roof-to-roof dumps, dormers, and valleys need layouts that do not build a glacier against a wall by February.
• Older frames, honest loads. Many camps predate any code. A roofer who works camp country asks about the frame before promising the panel; the town's TR-02-6 value is the reference point.
• Materials for the setting. Steel in 24 or 26 gauge covers most inland camps; aluminum is the conversation when the building lives close to salt air or gets heavy lakeside spray.

Running the project from three states away

Remote ownership changes the paperwork, not the roof. Get the panel system, gauge, finish, and per-sheet decking price in the written estimate; put the RSA 359-G notice in any contract over $5,000; tie payments to photographed milestones instead of calendar dates; and have the certificate of insurance sent to you directly by the insurer. Every one of those checks is spelled out in the NH roofer hiring guide, and the wider decision, costs included, sits in the New Hampshire Metal Roofing Guide.

Where these projects live

Winnipesaukee, Squam, Newfound, and Winnisquam camps anchor the Lakes Region; ski country and North Conway cottages anchor the White Mountains; and Sunapee-area places fall under the Upper Valley. A full replacement on a year-round schedule starts at metal roof replacement.