St. Cloud, Minnesota
Expert Slate Roofing in St. Cloud, MN
Original slate still exists in St. Cloud, which is not true of most towns in Sherburne County. The Southside district alone holds roughly 261 buildings from the 1880s through the 1950s, and Pan Motor put up the Pantown bungalows in 1917 and 1918. On stock that old the question is almost never what to install. It is what to keep.
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The metal fails long before the slate does
A century old roof usually fails at the metal. The slate itself can have decades left while the valley liners, the step flashing at the dormer cheeks and the collar at the chimney have rusted through, and that is what shows up as a ceiling stain. So we get on the roof, sound the field, and count what is actually broken before anyone talks about tear off. The other pattern here is geometry: steep main pitches that shed fine, running into nearly flat porch roofs and dormer returns where the melt slows down and ice dams set up. Those shallow transitions get rebuilt in soldered metal, not more slate. Exterior work in Southside, Pantown, Barden Park, Southeast and the Commercial District falls under the city's historic preservation rules, so bring a certified roof assessment, plus the photos that come with it, to that conversation.
Slate Roofing in St. Cloud
Keeping original slate on the house
Sound slate stays where it is
We sound the field before quoting anything. Slates that ring still have decades in them, and pulling a working roof to fix metal that gave out is work spent backward.
Copper at valleys and chimneys
The metal wears out long before the stone does. We rebuild valley liners, step flashing at the dormer cheeks and the chimney collar in copper, so the metal is not the part that fails again.
Ice dams stopped at porch returns
Steep main pitches here run into nearly flat porch roofs and dormer returns, and melt stacks up right at that change. Those shallow sections get rebuilt in soldered metal with protection under them.
Salvage matched to what you have
Color, thickness and size vary by quarry and by decade. We pull usable slates from hidden slopes and low returns to patch the street face, so a repair does not read as a patch from the sidewalk.
Work that survives historic review
Southside, Pantown, Barden Park, Southeast and the Commercial District are locally designated, so visible material matters. We document what is on the roof and what we propose before a slate moves.
Pantown eave lines left alone
The bungalows Pan Motor built in 1917 and 1918 have low sweeping eaves and exposed tails. We keep the drip edge tight to that line instead of building it out and losing the profile.
How we approach roofs in the districts
We repair before we sell a roof
Most calls in these neighborhoods end in a repair. If your slate has life left, we say so, even though the bigger job would pay us better.
The roof gets inventoried first
Broken, slipped and missing slates counted by slope, photographed, with a note on where salvage can come from. That list is what the estimate is built on.
Written so review can read it
Material, color, size and profile go on paper in plain terms, so what you hand the city describes the roof instead of a product name nobody at the counter recognizes.
We will come out for one slate
A single slipped slate over the porch is a real call, not a nuisance. Old roofs last because somebody keeps handling the small things early.
We walk old slate carefully
Careless feet break more slate than weather does. We stage off hook ladders and roof jacks and keep weight off brittle courses, including during the estimate.
What people near St. Cloud say
We live in Eden Prairie. Orange did an excellent job on our siding replacement and provided great customer service all the way through.
Thomas DeSutterSiding replacement, Eden Prairie, MN Fantastic guys to work with, did an excellent job of fixing our siding. You can tell it’s a high integrity company. Definitely recommend.
Carolyn MillerSiding repair The crew arrived early and spread tarps all around the house to capture every bit of debris. By 3:00 PM, my entire roof was completely finished.
Hazel JamesRoof replacement, Minneapolis, MN
Old slate questions, answered
What people in St. Cloud ask us about this work. If yours is not covered, call and ask.
Do I need approval to reroof a house in a St. Cloud historic district?
Plan on it. The city has five locally designated districts, Barden Park, Pantown, Southside, Southeast and the Commercial District, and exterior work there falls under its historic preservation rules. Ask the city before ordering material, because replacing slate in kind is usually the smoothest path and switching to something else visible from the street rarely is.
How do I know if my old slate is worth repairing?
It comes down to the stone, not the leaks. If most of the field still rings solid and the trouble is rusted valleys and flashing, repair is the better job by a wide margin. If slates are delaminating and flaking across whole slopes, or the nails are letting go everywhere at once, the roof is finished and patching only buys a season.
Can you match the slate on my old St. Cloud house?
Usually close, sometimes exactly. Old roofs here came from a handful of quarries, some still producing and some closed for good, so salvage covers what nobody makes now. We take a slate off your roof, measure thickness and size, and compare color in daylight rather than from a chart. On a street facing slope, salvage from your own hidden slopes beats a near miss.
See what your slate still has left
Give us the address and we will get on the roof, sound the field, and tell you whether you are looking at a metal repair or a new slate roof. It costs nothing to find out.
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Tell us what is going on with your roof, siding, windows, or gutters. We will take a look and give you a straight answer, including when the answer is that you can wait.
- Phone(612) 600-8529
- Emailadmin@orange-exteriors.com
- Office6600 City West Pkwy Suite 375, Eden Prairie, MN 55344
- HoursOpen 24 hours, Sunday to Saturday
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Rated 5.0 from 217 Google reviews