Free Roofing Quotes in Oak Ridge, TN

Oak Ridge was built from scratch in 1942 as a Manhattan Project production site, which is where the nicknames Secret City and Atomic City come from. Houses went up quickly, many of them made with cemesto panels of bonded cement and asbestos, and a lot of those wartime homes are still lived in. The city was incorporated in 1959 and lies in both Anderson and Roane counties, with Melton Hill Lake on its east side and Watts Bar Lake to the south.

Alphabet houses and the original townsite

The wartime houses came in standard designs labeled with letters, which is why they are known as alphabet houses. The National Park Service lists cemesto types A through H and flat-top designs in types A, B, C, S and V. The Oak Ridge Historic District, added to the National Register in 1991, covers much of the original townsite, roughly bounded by East Drive, Outer and West Outer drives, Louisiana Avenue and Tennessee Avenue.

Before a tear-off on one of these houses, ask the roofer how they would handle cemesto panels or other original materials that might contain asbestos. Disturbing those materials can call for testing and special handling, so it is better to settle that before work starts.

Flat-tops need a different roof

The flat-top designs are not shingle roofs. Asphalt shingles are not made for nearly flat surfaces, so these houses typically use a membrane such as modified bitumen, TPO or EPDM.

If you own a flat-top, ask each roofer which system they recommend, how they will handle drainage at the edges, and whether they can add insulation above the deck while the roof is open. Ponding water is the usual enemy on a low-slope roof, so a good quote explains where the water goes.

Later neighborhoods, ridges and lakes

Beyond the townsite, the city kept filling in: Woodland, with its curving, alphabetically named streets, Emory Valley, Hendrix Creek and Gamble Valley, and more recently the master-planned Rarity Ridge community at The Preserve at Oak Ridge, which has recorded covenants.

Oak Ridge is laid out among long ridges, including Black Oak Ridge, East Fork Ridge and Pine Ridge, so many lots are wooded and sloped. Homes near Melton Hill Lake or Watts Bar Lake can also catch wind off the water. Ask about drip edge, gutter guards for leaf-heavy lots and the shingle's wind rating.

Duplexes and shared roofs

In the Woodland area, the historic houses are mostly single-family models, while neighboring Scarboro is dominated by duplexes. On a duplex, one roof usually covers two households, so talk with the owner next door before you reroof. Replacing only your half can leave a visible color line and a weak seam at the party wall, and doing both halves as one job avoids that.