Portland, Maine · Since 1974 · Slate & sheet metal

Built to be forgotten.

The best roof is the one you never think about again. We replace slate, copper and shingle roofs on the same twelve streets our grandfathers worked — no storm-chasing, no door-knocking, no estimate that grows after the tear-off.

Request a survey See the plates

TradesSlate · copper · standing-seam · cedar · architectural shingle
CrewFourteen roofers on payroll. No subcontractors, ever.
WarrantyTwenty years on workmanship, transferable once.

Hand-split cedar shingle roof on a Cape Elizabeth house at dusk, lit windows under deep eaves — Plate 01 Cape Elizabeth — hand-split cedar shingle, ridge repointed in 2025.

Low-slope roof over a glass-walled house built beneath a mature oak in Falmouth — Plate 02 Falmouth — warm-roof assembly over a 1972 deck. The oak stayed; the chimney moved ninety centimetres. Photographed October 2026

Our approach

Three things
we won't trade.

A roofing company is mostly a set of promises made before anyone climbs a ladder. These are ours, in the order we would defend them.

The estimate is the whole estimate.

Every scope is priced line by line: decking by the sheet, ice-and-water across the full six feet at the eaves, copper at the chimney, dumpster, permit, magnetic sweep. You approve a number, and that number is what you pay.

When we open a roof and find rot that nobody could see from the ground, we stop, photograph it, and send the price before we touch it. That happened eleven times in 2026. Three owners chose to wait a season — we tarped the opening and left.

“If the number changes after the tear-off, it was never an estimate.”

Rowan Marlowe · third generation

Change orders issued in 2026: three, all requested by owners.

Slate is cut, not shopped.

We keep Vermont unfading and semi-weathering slate on the rack in three thicknesses, because a hundred-and-thirty-year-old roof is repaired in courses that no supply house still stocks. Copper is formed and soldered at the bench on Cove Street, not bent over your ridge with a hammer.

Cedar is hand-split for the ridges and re-squared for the field. Standing seam is roll-formed to length on site, so there is no lap joint to open up at year nineteen.

“Anybody can install a new roof. The trade is in the hundredth repair.”

Émile Bouchard · shop foreman, thirty-one years

On the rack this week: 4,100 squares of slate, 20 oz and 16 oz copper.

We work where we sleep.

Fourteen roofers, all on payroll, all living between Westbrook and Freeport. In a storm the crew that fixes your ridge is the crew you stand behind at the co-op on Saturday morning.

One non-profit roof is replaced at cost every spring — the food pantry on India Street, the theatre on Munjoy Hill, the church that runs the winter shelter. Four apprentices have come through the shop since 2019; two are still on the payroll.

“You can't subcontract a reputation.”

Rowan Marlowe

Non-profit roofs replaced at cost since 2011: fifteen.

The work

Plates from the
last twelve months.

Three of sixty-three. Addresses on request — every owner on this page agreed to the drive-by.

Red clapboard house under tall pines with a newly finished roof — Cape Elizabeth

Full tear-off and re-deck

2,400 sq ft · eleven days · October 2026

Small red cottage with a standing-seam metal roof on an island hillside — Peaks Island

Standing seam, salt-air spec

900 sq ft · five days · May 2026

Slate dormer with a white-framed window, moss along the courses — Munjoy Hill

Slate repair, 41 pieces

1891 mansard · three days · June 2026

Roofs since January 2024

The rest of the archive lives in a binder at the shop — ask and we will bring it to the survey.

Request the archive

Stories

The street keeps
the receipt.

Three roofs, three households, one ledger that anyone on the block can read.

Sherman Street · the 1891 mansard

The roof was older than the wiring.

Eleanor V. has lived in the same house since 1971 and had never seen the top of her own roof. She had a quote in a drawer from a company that wanted to tear off the slate and sell her asphalt.

We walked the ridge with her on a Tuesday morning, counted the failed pieces out loud, and replaced forty-one of them — matched from a pile already in the yard. Two valley seams were re-soldered, the 1891 ridge was left exactly where it was, and the bill was two pages long.

She has since sent four neighbours down the same stairs. That is the entire marketing plan.

India Street · spring 2026

A roof for the pantry

The food pantry had been patched with tar for nine winters, and the ceiling above the freezer had begun to stain. We replaced it at cost over four days in April, with two roofers donated by a competitor who lives on Munjoy Hill.

Materials at cost · labour donated · 2,100 sq ft

Cove Street · the bench

Two apprentices, still here

Nate and Cole came through the shop in 2022 with no site experience between them. Nate runs the copper bench now; Cole is on a ridge crew in Cape Elizabeth. The trade is taught one seam at a time, and it takes about four years.

Apprentices since 2019: four · still on payroll: two

The ledger

Numbers we would
rather you check.

Counted from job files, not from a marketing deck. Ask for any year back to 1974.

Roofs completed since 1974: 2,480
Roofers on payroll: 14
Subcontractors on site, any year: 0
Estimates written in 2026: 318
Work that arrived by a neighbour's referral: 71%

The scope

What the estimate
covers — and what
never appears on it.

Read a competing estimate beside ours and count the lines. Ours is longer, and the total is usually the same or lower.

Always itemised

Decking, by the sheetPriced per 4×8, photographed before it comes off.
Ice-and-water at the eavesThe full six feet, not a token strip at the gutter line.
Copper flashing and counterflashingFormed and soldered at the bench, not folded on the roof.
Ridge and soffit ventilationBalanced against the measured attic volume.
Dumpster, permit, magnetic sweepTwice a day, both lawns, before we leave.

Never on the invoice

Fuel surchargeThe truck burns what it burns.
“Shop supplies”Not a line item, not a percentage, not ever.
A surcharge for rot we could have seenIf we missed it at the survey, we eat it.
A second trip for our own flashingThe warranty is twenty years; the drive is ours.
Day-labour markupEveryone on your roof is on our payroll.

Service life, installed to spec

Figures assume the whole assembly — underlayment, ventilation and flashing — not only the covering.

Vermont slate100+ yrs
Copper, 20 oz80 yrs
Standing-seam steel50 yrs
Cedar shingle30 yrs
Architectural asphalt25 yrs

Request a survey

Tell us about the roof.
We'll bring the ladder.

We survey roofs ourselves — no call centre, no drone-only quote pushed through an app. You get a written, line-item scope within three working days and a start date we intend to keep.

If the roof has another decade in it, we will say so and send you away with a repair list instead.

Rowan MarloweThird generation · 84 Cove Street, Portland