Olympia Roof Pros: Roof Replacement, Repair & Low-Slope Systems
Expert residential and commercial roofing services. Free inspections across Thurston County, with unit prices in writing before anything comes off.
- ✓Registered Washington general contractor, with bond and insurance verifiable on the L and I Verify tool
- ✓Unit prices for decking, woodwork and metal written into the scope before the tear-off
- ✓Free inspections across Thurston, Mason, Lewis, Grays Harbor and south Pierce counties
- ✓Public and institutional low-slope standards applied to residential work
Olympia Roof Pros is a licensed, bonded and insured Olympia, Washington roofing contractor. We take on roof replacement, leak repair, wind and storm damage, architectural asphalt shingle, standing seam metal, low-slope membrane assemblies, ventilation, gutters, chimney flashing and commercial roofing right across Thurston County and the south Sound.
This is a capital city, so the roof area around us is weighted toward public and institutional buildings rather than houses, and that inventory is overwhelmingly low-slope membrane bought through an advertised bid calendar rather than a phone call. It sets what the local trade is genuinely equipped to do, what the supply houses keep in stock, and when the crews are free to do any of it for you.
We work both sides of that market and we tell homeowners how it affects them. It decides which materials are easy to buy well here and which are not, why a July slot costs more than a January one, and why every scope we write carries unit prices for decking, blocking and metal before a single course comes off your roof. Residential and commercial, steep-slope and low-slope, we quote both sides of it from the same office.
Why Olympia Chooses Olympia Roof Pros
- ✓We quote your summer date and your November date side by side, because in a capital city the dry weeks are sold against a public bid calendar and the gap between those two prices is real money you should get to decide about.
- ✓Every scope carries unit prices for sheathing, blocking, fascia and flashing before the tear-off starts, the way a public change order has to be written, so nothing on your job gets renegotiated from the top of a ladder.
- ✓We will tell you that nobody owes you prevailing wage on a private house. If a bid quotes the published Thurston County rate at you as a justification, that is a public works number being used as a sales line.
- ✓We do not install new concrete or clay tile in this market. The bench that can flash and maintain it properly is thin here, and we would sooner turn the work down than leave you with a roof nobody local will service.
- ✓Low-slope work on houses gets the assembly we install on public buildings, down to the tested edge metal and the tapered insulation, because the supply chain here stocks it and the crews already build it weekly.
- ✓You keep the condition file whether or not you hire us: photographs keyed to a numbered roof plan, core cut locations, and meter readings with the date and the instrument written on them.
About Olympia Roof Pros in Olympia, WA
Olympia Roof Pros works Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, Yelm and the surrounding Thurston County towns, with regular work south into Lewis County, west into Mason and Grays Harbor, and north as far as DuPont and Lakewood. We run steep-slope and low-slope crews and we take both residential and commercial work, which in a capital city means public and institutional buildings alongside houses.
That split is the reason we write the way we do. Agency work will not let you discover a problem and invent a number for it, so hidden conditions are unit priced in advance, conditions are photographed and dated before they are covered, and moisture is measured rather than estimated. Homeowners get the same file and the same arithmetic, and it costs us nothing to hand it over.
We are the wrong company for you if price is the only variable you care about, or if you want new tile. We will not leave woodwork and deck replacement out of a proposal to make it look smaller, we will not coat a wet roof or a shingle roof, and we do not install tile in a county with no tile bench to service it afterward. Those are the jobs we would rather lose.
Our Roofing Services in Olympia, WA
Roof Replacement
A roof replacement in Olympia gets scheduled before it gets priced. The dry stretch from mid-July into late September is the same stretch the state's construction money lands in, and the crews with lifts and welders sold those weeks months ago.
Roof Leak Repair
Most of the leaks we chase in Olympia are on the shallow parts of a house, not the steep ones. Shed dormers, porch roofs, sunroom additions and the flat link between a house and its garage are where water actually gets in around here.
Storm Damage Restoration
South Sound storms do their damage through trees more often than through pressure. A single Douglas fir limb across a rafter bay does more to a roof in one second than a whole winter of weather, and the repair is structural before it is ever a roofing job.
Hail Damage Roofing
Hail is a real peril and it is not this county's peril. We inspect for it honestly, which mostly means arriving at a house where somebody has been told they have hail damage and working out what actually hit the roof, and when.
Wind Damage Roofing
Wind takes a roof apart from the outside in, and it starts at the edge. On almost every wind-damaged roof we open in Thurston County the first thing that moved was drip edge or rake metal, and everything after that is a consequence.
Roof Inspections
An inspection should end with a document, not a verdict. You get the condition report format we produce for building owners: a numbered roof plan, keyed photographs, meter readings with the date and the instrument on them, and a written remaining-life opinion.
Asphalt Shingle Roofs
Asphalt covers most of the steep roofs in this city and it should. A laminated architectural shingle over a properly prepared deck is the right buy for the overwhelming majority of Olympia houses, and the decisions that matter are all underneath it rather than on the shelf.
Metal Roofing
We recommend metal more often in Olympia than we would in most cities, and the reason is not weather. A capital city keeps a real sheet-metal bench employed, because the buildings around us need coping, curbs and gravel stops every year regardless of the housing market.
Tile Roofing
We repair and maintain tile roofs in Olympia and we do not install new ones. That is a deliberate position and it is about this market rather than about the product, so it is worth explaining properly before you decide we are the wrong company for you.
Flat & Low-Slope Roofing
This is the work this market does best, and the reason is the buildings around us rather than the houses. Public and institutional roof area in Thurston County is overwhelmingly low-slope membrane, so the welders, the equipment and the tapered layout skill are all here year round.
Roof Coatings & Sealing
A coating is an asset-management decision before it is a roofing product. On the public buildings we work on, nobody buys one without a moisture survey and a capital plan, and we apply the same two tests to a private building or a house before quoting one.
Roof Ventilation
The buildings that dominate this city's roof area are mechanically ventilated and houses are not. That is why attic moisture is a serious defect on an agency building and an afterthought on a residence, and it is the commonest fault we find here.
Skylights
Olympia gets a long gray winter and skylights are a reasonable response to it. They are also the single most common place a re-roofed house starts leaking two years later, almost always because of how the unit was mounted rather than any fault of the unit.
Gutters & Downspouts
Gutters in Olympia are a maintenance item that people buy as a construction item, and that is where the money goes wrong. Under a fir and cedar canopy, the metal is not usually what failed.
Fascia & Soffit
Fascia and soffit are where a roofing estimate turns into an argument, because nobody can see the condition of a board until the gutter comes off. The way to stop it becoming an argument is to agree the price of the unknown before anybody goes up a ladder.
Chimney Flashing
Thurston County has an unusual number of masonry chimneys that were disturbed and then only half repaired. On the morning of 28 February 2001 the Nisqually earthquake shook this area hard enough to move the Capitol dome off center, and it cracked brick chimneys across Olympia at the same time.
Emergency Tarping
Tarping buys you time and nothing else. It is worth saying that plainly, because the honest use of a tarp is to stop water entering the house until a repair can be scoped properly, and it is not a cheaper version of a repair.
Commercial Roofing
Low-slope volume in Thurston County comes out of a procurement calendar, not a freight economy. There is no inland port and no warehouse belt here.
Insurance Claim Help
What we do on a claim is produce evidence and a defensible scope. We do not act as your public adjuster, negotiate for you, or promise any outcome, because in Washington that is regulated work and not a roofing contractor's job.
Commercial, Public and Institutional Roofing in Olympia and Thurston County
Thurston County's low-slope roof area sits on state offices, county and city buildings, school districts, colleges, medical property, churches and apartment blocks rather than on distribution warehouses. That means the work here is shaped by procurement rules more than by any industrial cycle: advertised bids, filed prevailing wage intents, monthly certified payroll, retainage, payment bonds and apprentice utilization.
We work inside that regime, and we bring the same survey and documentation standard to private commercial owners who are not bound by any of it.
- ✓Sixty and eighty mil thermoplastic and EPDM sheet, mechanically attached or fully adhered over a cover board
- ✓Two-ply modified bitumen where hot work has to stay clear of an occupied wall
- ✓Tapered polyisocyanurate laid to a genuine fall with crickets behind every damming curb
- ✓Edge metal, coping and parapet terminations tested to ANSI/SPRI ES-1
- ✓Moisture surveys with logged core cuts and wet area reported as a percentage of the field
- ✓Numbered roof plans and dated condition files suitable for a capital request or a lender
- ✓Prevailing wage intents, monthly certified payroll and affidavits filed through Labor and Industries
- ✓Phased and after-hours work so offices, classrooms and clinics stay in use
Recent Projects Across Thurston County and the south Sound
How It Works
- Free Inspection, and You Keep the File. We walk every plane we can stand on safely, use a pole camera on the rest, and take meter readings on any low-slope section. You get dated photographs keyed to a numbered roof plan, the readings with the instrument recorded, and a written remaining-life opinion, whether or not you hire us.
- A Written Scope With Unit Prices. Before anything is stripped, you have a price per sheet of sheathing, per lineal foot of fascia and flashing, per rafter tail and per penetration. That is how a public change order has to be written, and it means nothing on your job gets renegotiated from the top of a ladder.
- Two Dates, Two Prices. We quote the scarce summer slot and the wet-season alternative side by side, with the sequencing plan for each. In a city where the dry weeks are bid out against a public calendar, the difference between those two dates is real money, and you should be the one deciding which you want.
- Dry In First, Then Finish. We open only what we can close the same day, dry in the deck, and leave the detail work, the metal and the trim as their own stage. You get the disposal weights, the photographs of what was under the old covering, and the warranty paperwork on completion.
What Olympia Customers Say
They quoted a July date and a January date on the same page and explained why one cost more. We took the winter slot, they opened one slope at a time and had it dried in before dark each day, and the sheathing that had to be replaced came in at the per-sheet price they had written down.
Our flat porch roof had been patched three times by other people. These were the first to actually cut a core and show us the insulation was soaked. They tore it off, added tapered insulation so it drains, and welded the seams. Two winters now with nothing in the ceiling.
I called about a leak expecting a replacement pitch. They found a missing kick-out flashing where the roof meets the front wall, sorted it for under three hundred dollars, and said I had another six or seven winters on it. They sent the photographs and the report anyway.
We manage a small commercial building downtown. Their survey came back with a numbered plan, core cut locations and the wet percentage of the field, which is more than the previous two bidders gave us combined. They told us a recover would be wasted money and priced the tear-off instead.
Service Areas
Olympia Roof Pros serves Olympia, WA and surrounding communities including:
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a re-roof in Olympia need a building permit?
A straight covering replacement is usually treated as minor work, while anything structural, including new skylight openings, pitch changes, dormers or significant deck and framing repair, needs a building permit with plans. Those go through the City of Olympia Community Planning and Development permit center at City Hall on 4th Avenue East.
Outside the city limits it is Thurston County, and Lacey, Tumwater and Yelm each run their own. We confirm which applies before quoting and we pull the permit in our own name.
Why is it so hard to book a roof in Olympia in July and August?
Because the same weeks are the public works season. Washington's fiscal year starts on 1 July, agency and school district re-roof contracts are advertised so the work lands in the dry months, and a contractor who wins one has committed that block of weather months before homeowners start calling. There is nothing improper about it, but it means summer residential capacity in this county is scarce and priced accordingly. A November tear-off, properly sequenced, is often the better purchase.
Do I have to pay prevailing wage on work at my house?
No. Chapter 39.12 RCW applies to public works, meaning projects paid for by a public agency. Nothing obliges a private homeowner to pay the published rate, and no contractor is required to charge it to you.
If a bid on your house quotes the Thurston County prevailing rate as a justification for its price, that is a public number being used as a sales argument. Ask instead for crew size and labor hours, which is what actually varies between the bids you are comparing.
Does the state contractor bond protect my re-roof?
Less than most people assume. The bond filed under RCW 18.27.040 is $30,000 for a general registration and $15,000 for a specialty one, it is shared among every claimant against that contractor, and it is not sized to your project.
By contrast a public agency receives a payment bond for the whole contract amount under chapter 39.08 RCW and holds retainage under chapter 60.28 RCW. Verify registration, bond and claim history on the L and I Verify tool, then rely on a detailed written scope.
Is it a bad idea to re-roof during the wet season here?
Not if it is sequenced properly. We open only what can be dried in the same day, stage material under cover, and run self-adhered membrane over the full deck rather than only the eaves.
The real constraint is temperature: asphalt shingles seal slowly below about forty degrees, so field courses and rake edges get hand-sealed with roofing cement instead of waiting on the factory strip. Metal and single-ply membrane are less weather-sensitive still. The trade-off is a longer schedule for a better price.
Why do roofing bids in Thurston County vary so much?
Three reasons, and only one of them is quality. First, some companies price labor off a public wage basis and some do not, which moves a number before anyone looks at your roof. Second, bids differ on what they include: deck replacement, ventilation upgrades, edge metal and woodwork are the usual omissions. Third, summer and off-season pricing genuinely differ here. A bid without unit prices for the unknowns is not cheaper, it is just unfinished.