Harvard is the hardest town we work in, and the most interesting. The housing stock runs from eighteenth-century farmhouses around the Common and out through Still River to hilltop properties with as much wind exposure as anywhere in the Nashoba Valley, and very little of it can be treated as a standard re-roof. Roofs here have usually been altered several times over two centuries, additions meet the original structure at angles nobody would draw today, and the leak is almost never in the open field of the roof — it is at a junction.
The wind is the factor people underestimate. On the open ground and higher elevations around town, and on the exposed slopes above the orchards, we see damage that a sheltered house in a valley never gets: ridge caps lifted, rake edges peeled, and shingles whose seal bonds have broken without the shingle going anywhere. That last one is the reason we recommend having a Harvard roof looked at specifically after a significant nor'easter, rather than waiting for a leak. The argument for doing it quickly is about evidence: a slope that has lost its bonds looks completely normal and will not leak until the following winter, and by then establishing that a particular storm caused it has become very hard.
Then there is slate. A number of houses in Harvard still carry original or early slate, and our advice on those is consistent: repair it. Slate that has been maintained lasts a century or more, individual slates can be replaced, and the flashings — which are what actually fail — can be renewed without touching the field. Replacing a sound slate roof with asphalt permanently changes the building and gives you a roof with a third of the lifespan. We will say so even though the replacement is the bigger job for us.
For work on historically significant properties, be aware that Harvard has local review processes that can apply to exterior changes on certain buildings and in certain settings. Where that is relevant we will raise it before the job rather than after, and full replacements need a building permit from the Harvard building department in any case.
Around Harvard, MA
We regularly work near:
- 📍Harvard Town Common
- 📍Fruitlands Museum
- 📍Bare Hill Pond
- 📍Still River Village
- 📍Carlson Orchards
- 📍Harvard Public Library
- 📍Old Littleton Road
- 📍Prospect Hill
Roofing Contractor in Harvard, MA — Local Notes
- •Hilltop and open-ground properties around Harvard take far more wind than sheltered houses — broken seal bonds and creased shingles after a nor'easter are common and invisible from the ground.
- •An inspection dated within weeks of a storm is the strongest evidence available that the damage was storm-caused rather than wear, which is why timing matters more here than in sheltered towns.
- •Eighteenth and nineteenth-century houses around the Common and in Still River have been added to repeatedly; nearly every leak is at a junction between original structure and a later addition.
- •Original and early slate roofs are worth repairing rather than replacing — the failures are almost always in the flashings, not the slate itself.
- •Woven shingle valleys do not hold up on the multi-plane roofs common here; valleys on these houses should be metal-lined.
- •Exterior work on historically significant Harvard properties may involve local review, which is worth establishing before scheduling rather than mid-job.