24/7 Emergency Service · Washington, DC DC License #410519000552 (202) 531-6114
Louise August Roofing

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Slate Roofing

Slate work worthy
of a DC Victorian.

The District's Victorians, mansards, and turrets were crowned in slate for a reason: it lasts a century. We repair, restore, and match it so yours lasts another.

Slate is DC heritage — treat it that way

Logan Circle, Capitol Hill, Columbia Heights — the mansards and turrets that give those blocks their character are mostly original slate, still working after a hundred years. Slate doesn't wear out so much as it gets betrayed: rusted fasteners, failed flashing, and clumsy repairs with tar and mismatched shingles.

Our slate work is about preserving what's up there. We replace broken pieces with matched salvaged slate, re-hang slipped courses on proper hooks, and leave the field looking like nothing ever happened.

The metal matters as much as the stone

On a slate roof, what usually fails first is everything around the slate: valleys, step flashing, built-in box gutters, and ridge metal. We rework those in copper or terne-coated metal that lives as long as the slate does. Cheap aluminum in a hundred-year valley is how good roofs die young.

Repair honestly, replace rarely

A slate roof with scattered broken pieces almost never needs replacement — it needs a craftsman and an afternoon. If the slate itself is delaminating across the field (it happens with some soft slates), we'll show you and talk through real options, including synthetic slate where historic review allows.

Slate Roofing questions, answered

Good hard slate lasts 100 to 150 years or more. The flashings, fasteners, and gutters around it last 50 to 80 when done in copper — which is why most "slate problems" are really metal problems.
Almost always. We source salvaged slate in matching color, size, and thickness, and we weather-place it so repairs blend instead of checkerboarding.
It can be. Slate cracks underfoot when walked wrong. We work from hooks, ladders, and staging so the roof never carries weight it wasn't meant to.

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