Roofers in Bucks County, PA: long-held homes, 54 permit offices and a complaint office
Updated · KeystoneProGuide editorial team
What should Bucks County homeowners know before a roof job?
Three local facts shape it. Bucks owners tend to stay a long time, so many are now facing a roof they have already lived under for decades. Permits are decided by each of 54 townships and boroughs, not by the county. And the county runs a consumer protection office that will step into a dispute with a contractor.
Why are so many Bucks roofs due for a decision?
Because the owners have been there a while. In the Census Bureau's 2020-2024 estimates, the householder in 14.1 percent of occupied Bucks homes moved in during 1989 or earlier, the highest share of the five counties in this directory. More than three in four occupied homes, 77.8 percent, are lived in by their owners, again the highest of the five.
Set that against the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA), the trade's association, which says most new roofs are designed to give about 20 years of useful service. A household that moved in during 1989 or earlier has now lived in the house for more than three decades, longer than that design life, so unless the roof was replaced along the way it is past the age NRCA describes. If you bought the house and do not know when the roof was last done, look at the seller's property disclosure statement: Pennsylvania law requires the form to cover the roof.
The housing itself is mostly postwar. Only about one in ten Bucks homes, 9.9 percent, was first built in 1939 or earlier, the smallest share of the five counties and well below the 25.0 percent for Pennsylvania. Another 5.7 percent has gone up since 2010. Most Bucks roofs are therefore on houses built in the decades between, and 79.5 percent of the county's 257,260 housing units are single-family houses, detached or attached.
Do the dates matter for lead paint?
They can. The Environmental Protection Agency requires any firm paid to disturb painted surfaces in a home built before 1978 to be certified in lead-safe work practices. The agency's page does not mention roofs; the rule turns on whether paid work disturbs paint. The Census profile does not say how many Bucks homes predate 1978, but the one in ten first built in 1939 or earlier all do. If your house is older than 1978 and the roof job will disturb painted wood, such as trim at the eaves, ask the roofer for its certification.
Who decides whether your roof needs a permit?
The local government, and Bucks has a lot of them: its online directory names 54 townships and boroughs. Statewide, Labor and Industry reports that over 90 percent of municipalities run code enforcement in-house or through an agency they hire, so the rules for a reroof in one Bucks borough can differ from those in the township next door.
All of them start from one state text. The building code regulation leaves repairs to residential buildings outside the code unless a local ordinance says otherwise. Where the code does apply, its reroofing section does not allow new shingles over a roof that already has two or more layers, and it requires an ice barrier along the eaves wherever the local code records a history of ice damming. Ask your code office what it records for your township, because that decision is made locally. What Pennsylvania requires of roofers explains the state registration and contract rules that sit on top of the permit question.
Where can you turn in Bucks County if a roof job goes wrong?
Start with the county. Its consumer protection office, which also handles weights and measures, lists "home improvement issues" in the first lines of its mission, and it will mediate a complaint against a business wherever that business is based. Three of the problems it names fit roofing closely: being told repairs are needed when they are not, a guarantee or warranty that is not honored, and a home repair left unfinished or done badly. Where a case may be criminal, the office passes it to other enforcement agencies. Phone 215-348-6060 or file the form online; the office is at 1260 Almshouse Road in Doylestown.
The state is the other route. The Attorney General's contractor search lets you narrow results to Bucks County, which is worth doing before you sign rather than after. No cost survey publishes a Bucks County price, so the cost guide gives the national ranges. Roofers who serve the county are listed on the Bucks County roofers page.
Sources
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Chester County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Delaware County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- Resources (frequently asked questions), National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA)
- Municipalities, Bucks County
- Uniform Construction Code, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
- 34 Pa. Code § 403.1. Scope., Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Code)
- Chapter 9 Roof Assemblies, 2021 International Residential Code, International Code Council
- Consumer Protection/ Weights & Measures, Bucks County
- Home Improvement Contractor Search, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
- Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Title 68, Chapter 73: Seller Disclosures, Pennsylvania General Assembly