Roofing Contractor in Mashpee, MA: Sound Side to Pine Woods

Mashpee is two roofing towns under one name. South of Route 28, the houses of New Seabury, Popponesset and South Cape Beach look straight at Nantucket Sound, and their roofs take the southwest wind and the salt that rides on it. North of the rotary, around Mashpee Commons, Johns Pond and Santuit Pond, the houses sit in pitch pine and scrub oak, and the roofs there fight shade, needles and ice instead. Coast Carpentry Home Group is a roofing contractor in Mashpee, MA, working out of our shop at 14 Parker Rd, Unit A in Osterville, a short drive east of the town line.

The roof pictured above is a Coast project photo: new cedar on a shingled cottage a few steps from the water, the same exposure a Mashpee roof faces at Popponesset. Below is what changes about a roof depending on where in Mashpee you live, what the town and your association will ask of you, and how to tell a roof that needs a repair from one that is done. No prices here. A real number takes a ladder, an attic hatch and an hour on your roof.

What makes roofing in Mashpee different from the rest of Cape Cod?

Most Cape towns we work in have a bay side and a Sound side. We wrote about that split in roofing in Yarmouth and roofing in Barnstable, village by village. Mashpee has no Cape Cod Bay shore. Its split runs between the open water on the south and the woods in the middle of town, and you can drive from one to the other in about ten minutes.

Mashpee is also a younger town than its neighbors. Much of it was built from the 1970s through the 1990s. A lot of those houses are on their second roof now and coming due for a third, and plenty of them carry skylights and low slope sections, which are the first places an aging roof leaks.

The third difference is paperwork. New Seabury, the golf communities and the condominium villages each have their own rules about what goes on a roof. In Mashpee, a roofer who only knows the town permit knows half the process.

What does Nantucket Sound wind do to a roof in New Seabury and Popponesset?

The summer southwesterly comes in off the Sound most afternoons, and a fall storm tracking up the coast pushes in from the same side. Wind does not peel a roof from the middle. It gets under the first course at a rake or works a ridge cap loose, and every lifted tab exposes the one behind it.

So the edges get the attention. Starter strip goes on at the eaves and up the rakes. Every shingle gets six nails, not four, because the Cape sits in the highest design wind zone in Massachusetts and the manufacturer’s high wind nailing pattern is what the wind warranty depends on.

Salt is the slower problem. Near the water we do not use bare aluminum step flashing or electro galvanized nails. The nails are hot dipped galvanized on asphalt and stainless on cedar, and the flashing at chimneys, walls and skylights is copper or a coated steel. The same exposure runs west along the shore, and our guide to roofing in Falmouth covers it from that side. Salt and sand work on a deck the same way, which we covered for this town in our post on building a deck in Mashpee.

Why do roofs under the Mashpee pines grow moss and ice?

Around Santuit Pond, Johns Pond and the neighborhoods off Route 130 and Great Neck Road North, the wind is not the enemy. The trees are. A roof here can be younger than one in New Seabury and look older, with black algae streaks down the north slope and moss lifting the shingle edges along every valley.

Needles are the start of it. They mat in the valleys and behind the chimney, the mat stays wet, and the shingles under it never dry. Inland we spec algae resistant shingles as a matter of course and keep the valleys open so needles wash through. We check the gutters and downspouts on every reroof, because a gutter packed with pine needles gives ice a place to start. Our guide to seamless aluminum gutters on Cape Cod covers sizing and hanger spacing.

Do not pressure wash moss off a shingle roof. It takes the granules with it. Moss comes off with a soft treatment and patience, and it stays off when the branches over the roof are cut back and the sun gets in.

Ice is the winter version of the same problem. Snow sits longer on a shaded north slope, a warm attic melts it from below, and the water refreezes at the cold eave. On those houses we run the ice and water barrier from the eave to well past the inside face of the exterior wall, and we look at the attic before we look at the shingles: insulation, air leaks, soffit intake and ridge exhaust.

Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Mashpee, MA?

Massachusetts treats a reroof as construction, not maintenance, so the state building code requires a permit to strip and replace roofing. The Town of Mashpee Building Department at Town Hall on Great Neck Road North issues it and takes applications online. The permit should be in the contractor’s name. Ask who pulls the permit, and walk away if the answer is you.

The bay side towns have a regional historic committee that reviews a roof visible from the road. Mashpee is not one of those towns, so that step does not apply here.

Conservation is the other office to know about. A reroof that keeps the same footprint is not usually the kind of work the Conservation Commission reviews. A job that grows into a dormer, a deck or anything dug near the Mashpee River, Santuit Pond or the bays is different. Ask the Conservation Department before the scope is final, not after the lumber is delivered.

Does New Seabury or your association have to approve a new roof?

This is the step that catches Mashpee homeowners. The town permit and the association approval are separate, and one does not replace the other. In New Seabury the Architectural Review Committee lists re-roofing by name among the exterior work that needs its Permit Certificate, and its guidelines include an appendix of approved roof shingles.

Have the guidelines in hand at the first visit. Then the shingle and the color written into the scope are ones the committee already allows, and nobody finds out otherwise with a crew on the roof. If you own a condominium, call the association first. The roof is often theirs to replace, not yours.

Association approval belongs in the scope and the schedule, the same as the permit. It should not be sprung on you after the deposit.

How do Mashpee roofers decide between repair and replacement?

Homeowners expect every roofer to push the replacement, so here is how we call it. After a blow on the Sound side, the usual damage is a strip of lifted or missing shingles along a rake or the ridge. If the roof under it has years left, we repair it and match the shingle as closely as the market allows.

The other common Mashpee roof is the one from the building boom with a second layer nailed over the first. That one is a tear off. We strip to the deck every time, because you cannot inspect sheathing through an old layer, and the soft plywood is usually at the eaves and around the old skylights.

Our repair or replace guide for Cape Cod roofs is the checklist we use on the ladder, and our post on what a new roof costs on Cape Cod explains how an estimate is built. Storm damage that leaves a roof open is a construction emergency, and we handle those for homeowners seven days a week.

Which roof suits a Mashpee house: shingles, cedar or metal?

We install CertainTeed architectural shingles as our standard and hold the CertainTeed ShingleMaster credential, which means the crew is trained to the manufacturer’s spec. For most Mashpee houses that is the right roof, on the water or in the woods.

Cedar is the upgrade that suits the shingle style houses near the Sound. We install cedar roofing with stainless fasteners and a breather layer so the shingles dry from both sides. Under heavy pine shade a cedar roof stays damp, so we would rather see it in the open than under the trees.

Metal is the other upgrade. Within a mile of salt water we specify aluminum panels, not coated steel, and our standing seam metal roof guide explains why. Low slope additions and porch roofs are a separate system. Those get a membrane, the work behind our CertainTeed Silver Star credential, and our guide to flat roof repair or replacement walks through that call.

How do you choose a roofing contractor in Mashpee, MA?

A roofing estimate for a Mashpee house should say tear off, not overlay. It should name the ice and water barrier and how far it runs, the underlayment, the starter, the nailing pattern, the metal at every chimney and wall, and the ventilation plan. If it says “replace roof, architectural shingles” and nothing else, everything that keeps water out of the house is left to the crew on the day.

Fagner Rodrigues holds the Massachusetts Construction Supervisor license that every Coast job runs under. Coast Carpentry Home Group is BBB Accredited with an A+ rating and Google Guaranteed. We do not quote from the street. Our guide to choosing a Cape Cod roofing contractor has the full list of questions to ask any roofer, and our post on roofing in Sandwich covers the town next door.

Our roofing services on Cape Cod page lists what we install, and our reviews come from homeowners across the Cape.

Frequently asked questions