Storm roof repair and reroofing in Pleasant Valley, Little Rock

Pleasant Valley is one of the older parts of west Little Rock. Most of it filled in during the late 1960s and early 1970s, as the city pushed west and the Rodney Parham Road interchange on I-430 opened in 1970. Pleasant Valley Country Club sits at its center, with some of the largest homes on the lots around the course.

Houses from that period tend to be long and low, with brick walls, wide overhangs, and attached garages. Their roofs are simple in shape but large in area, and many were framed with roof decking boards or early plywood that has now been through several tear offs.

Fifty years in, very few original roofs are left. What we usually find is a second or third shingle roof, some of it installed over an older layer, with vents and flashing that were reused instead of replaced. On a few homes we have found three layers, which adds real weight to framing that was never designed to carry it.

The March 31, 2023 tornado crossed I-430 at the Rodney Parham Road interchange, close to Pleasant Valley, after hitting the Breckenridge area. Homes across this part of town saw shingle loss, punctures from falling limbs and gutters torn loose, and many roofs here are only a few years old as a result.

Even in a normal spring, the tall oaks and pines that shade Pleasant Valley streets are the biggest risk. A single heavy limb can crack rafters, and smaller branches scrape granules off a slope every time the wind picks up. We trim back contact points when we can and tell you when an arborist should handle a larger tree.

When a storm opens the roof, we tarp first and photograph everything before cleanup, so your insurer sees the damage as it was.

On a roof that is 15 or more years old, a repair can still make sense if the damage is local and the rest of the field is sound. We check for curling, cracked tabs, granule loss and soft spots before we recommend anything, and we show you photos of what we see.

If there are already two layers, a full tear off is usually the better spend. Removing both layers lets us inspect and replace bad decking, install proper underlayment and ice and water membrane in the valleys, and start fresh with new flashing.

• Spot repair after a storm: typically $340 to $1,280
• Two layer tear off surcharge: often $1,150 to $2,940 on a large home
• Decking replacement: commonly $78 to $112 per sheet installed

Many Pleasant Valley attics were built with a few box vents and little or no soffit intake. Add a central Arkansas July and attic temperatures climb well past what shingles like, which shortens their life and makes upstairs rooms harder to cool.

During a reroof we look at the whole system: intake at the soffits, exhaust at the ridge and whether old insulation is blocking airflow at the eaves. Sometimes the fix is as simple as cutting in continuous soffit vents and adding baffles. Other times, adding attic insulation at the same visit saves you a second project and a second mess.

Pleasant Valley's mature trees are a big part of its appeal, and they keep gutters busy. Oak leaves in the fall and pine needles all year fill gutters along the long eaves of these homes, and once water backs up it rots the fascia boards and soffit behind them.

We see a lot of original or second generation aluminum gutters here that have pulled loose from rotted fascia, with spikes backing out and seams leaking at every corner. Replacing a few soft fascia boards and rehanging the gutter with hidden hangers usually costs $480 to $1,360, depending on the length involved.

If you are reroofing anyway, it is the right time to deal with gutters. New drip edge, sound fascia and properly pitched gutters all work together, and doing them in one visit keeps you from paying twice for ladders and cleanup. Gutter guards can help on the heaviest tree lines, though no guard removes the need for an occasional check.

We also look at where downspouts empty. On the sloped lots common here, water dumped next to the foundation often ends up in a crawlspace or basement.