Roofing in Butler-Tarkington, Indianapolis

Steep Roofs on a Historic College Neighborhood

Butler-Tarkington’s housing stock is older and steeper than most of the city. Walk a block off 46th Street or Boulevard Place and you’ll see it: two-story Foursquares with hipped roofs, Tudors with sharp gables and clipped corners, and a scattering of homes still wearing their original slate or the decades-old replacements that followed it. These houses were built by hand, before plywood decking and pneumatic nailers, and the roofs reflect that. Plank decking, real pitch, and details a production-roofing crew has never seen.

Steep pitch changes everything about a job. It means harness work instead of walking the slopes, more staging, more time, and a crew that’s actually comfortable up there. It also means the flashing details around chimneys, dormers, and sidewalls have to be done right, because on a roof this steep, water moves fast and finds every shortcut. Most of the leaks we chase in Butler-Tarkington aren’t shingle failures at all. They’re sixty-year-old chimney flashing that somebody smeared with caulk in 1998 and called fixed.

We work these blocks the way the houses deserve. Every job starts with a free inspection from both sides: up on the roof checking shingles, flashing, and valleys, and inside the attic looking at the plank decking and any moisture coming through. You get photo documentation of everything we found and a fixed price good for 60 days that itemizes decking, flashing, and any slate questions up front. No allowances that balloon later, no discovering the chimney mid-job.

And if your slate is repairable rather than replaceable, we’ll tell you that too. We don’t tear off roofs that still have life in them. Plenty of contractors see slate and see a big tear-off invoice; we see a material that’s already outlasted three asphalt roofs and might outlast a fourth with the right repairs. The honest answer depends on the slate, and the inspection is how we find it.