A New Roof for Your Rockville Home

The city, if you’re inside the city limits, and this is the single most common Rockville mistake. Rockville’s own rule is that county residents living inside the incorporated city limits must obtain building permits, plan reviews, and inspections from the City of Rockville. Montgomery County DPS doesn’t touch it. The city’s Inspection Services Division is at City Hall, 240-314-8240, and applications go through MGO Connect. Rockville also has its own Historic District Commission separate from the county’s.

Not in the current fee schedule, and that’s telling. A $125 Rockville roofing permit fee circulates on third-party sites. It doesn’t appear in Rockville’s FY27 fee schedule, which has no roofing line item at all, and that absence lines up with the city’s own Administrative Bulletin describing its permit exemption as covering in-kind replacement of the outermost exterior covering layer. We are careful about how firmly we state Rockville’s exemption, because the city rewrote its code in 2024 and the codified text is hard to pull. We confirm with Inspection Services on your specific job rather than guessing.

Because Rockville is not one housing market. The city’s build years are spread more evenly than anywhere else we work, with no decade holding more than 18.4% of the stock. Twinbrook is 1940s Cape Cods, New Mark Commons is 1967 to 1973, King Farm is 1990s. Those are three different roofs with three different failure timelines in one city. It’s the opposite of a place like Ashburn, where two-thirds of the housing went up in twenty years and the whole neighborhood ages together.

The price comes down to five things: the number of squares of roof area, the pitch, how many stories the house is, the condition of the decking underneath, and how many layers of old shingle have to come off. Two houses on the same street can differ by thousands on decking and tear-off alone, which is why we won't quote a roof over the phone. Every estimate is free and on-site, and it comes back the same day with both packages priced so you can see exactly what you're choosing between.

Most roof replacements run 3 to 5 days from tear-off to final walkthrough, and one-day installs are available on qualifying homes. The install itself is often a single day on an average home; the rest of the window is material delivery, weather, and any approval your HOA or historic district needs first. You get the schedule before the crew arrives, not after.

If the damage is localized and the roof still has service life left, repair is the right call and we'll tell you so. Replacement makes sense when the shingles are at the end of their life, when there's damage across multiple slopes, or when you've already patched the same roof more than once. We inspect the attic and the decking before making that call, because what a roof looks like from the driveway isn't the whole story.

It depends on why the roof failed. Insurance covers sudden damage from wind, hail, or a storm. It doesn't cover a roof that simply wore out. We document the damage for your carrier, handle partial approvals, and regularly overturn denied claims. If a claim isn't the right path, we'll say so, because a denied claim on your record doesn't help you.

We show you before we replace it. Decking condition is invisible until the old roof is off, which makes it the most common reason a final number moves off the estimate. We agree the per-sheet price for decking replacement up front, and you get photographs of anything we pull.

Because a roof with bad ventilation dies early. Trapped heat and moisture cook shingles from underneath, shorten the life of the roof, and can void the material warranty. Ventilation is part of the roof system, not an upsell. We inspect the attic and assess ventilation on every job, and we'll tell you if what's up there is undersized for the roof going on top of it.

We don't do it as a default and we generally advise against it. A layover hides the decking, adds weight, traps heat, and shortens the life of the new shingles, and most manufacturers won't warranty the result. Tearing off costs more up front, and it's the only way to see and fix what's underneath.

Felt is tar paper. It tears when a crew walks on it and it holds water once it gets wet, which is a problem on the one layer that is supposed to shed water if a shingle ever lifts. Synthetic underlayment is a woven sheet that does not tear underfoot and does not absorb. Both packages we install use synthetic across the entire deck.

Starter is a sealed strip along every eave and rake, which is exactly where wind gets its grip on a roof. It also does something most homeowners never hear about: on the Platinum package the starter is made by TAMKO to bond to the Titan XT shingle, and that single component is what takes the wind warranty from 130 mph to 160. A competitor quoting the same shingle with generic starter isn't selling the same roof and can't register the same warranty.

Nobody knows for certain until the old roof comes off, and any contractor who tells you otherwise on the driveway is guessing. What we usually find is one of four things. Half-inch to five-eighths CDX plywood is what we want, and it's ready for a new system as-is. OSB is acceptable while it's dry. Three-eighths plywood and older plank decking typically need to be addressed before shingles go on, because nails don't hold reliably in either one.

It's a limited warranty with conditions, not a performance guarantee. TAMKO's WindGuard 160 mph coverage applies to the Titan XT shingle installed with TAMKO starter and TAMKO hip and ridge. The shingle on its own does not qualify. TAMKO also states plainly that its limited warranty does not cover hurricanes, whatever the product does in a storm, so nobody should be selling you one on that basis.

It doesn't have to be, but the highest warranty tier requires it. TAMKO's DiamondShield program requires four TAMKO accessories: starter, underlayment, ice and water shield, and hip and ridge. Install a TAMKO shingle with generic components and the roof is not eligible for that coverage at any price. That is an eligibility rule TAMKO wrote, not an upsell we invented.

Class 3 is an impact rating from UL 2218 laboratory testing, and the Titan XT shingle on our Platinum package carries it. Whether it lowers your premium is a question for your agent. Some carriers discount impact-rated roofing and many do not, and it varies by state and by policy, so it is worth asking rather than assuming either way.