Kemah’s roofs and porches, in the town named for the wind
Kemah takes its name from a Karankawa word meaning wind in my face, which is about the most honest description of a bay-front roof’s working life. The town has taken the 1900 hurricane, Carla in 1961 and Ike in 2008, and the wind is still the first thing we plan around.
Working in Kemah
Kemah began as Evergreen, laid out in town lots by the Bradford and Kipp families in 1898. After the 1900 Galveston hurricane, those families moved back in 1901 and rebuilt with two-story homes with porches. It was a small fishing town on west Galveston Bay, and when the Clear Creek Channel opened in the 1950s a major commercial shrimp fleet set up here. The 2020 census counted 1,807 residents. Kemah sits 30 miles southeast of Houston and 25 miles north of Galveston, Texas State Highway 146 runs through town, and its pupils attend Clear Creek Independent School District schools. Clear Lake Shores, Seabrook, El Lago, League City and Bacliff are the closest towns.
Hurricane Carla severely damaged Kemah in 1961. In September 2008 Hurricane Ike knocked out power, destroyed homes and businesses and hit the Kemah Boardwalk hardest with its storm surge. Surge is a ground-floor problem. The roof’s problem is wind, and in a town named for it, you can expect the wind to find every loose edge, every cracked ridge cap and every pipe boot that has started to split. Those are small fixes before a storm and big ones after it.
The two-story house with a porch has been part of Kemah since the 1901 rebuild. A porch roof or a covered patio is a roof of its own, and on the water it takes uplift from underneath as well as wind across the top, so the connections that tie it to the house and to its posts matter as much as the shingles. When we inspect, we check those tie-downs, the flashing where the porch roof meets the wall and the condition of the posts at their base, where water and salt sit longest. A porch that has started to sag at one corner is telling you something, and we find out what.
Kemah runs its own city government, so work inside town goes through the City of Kemah. A re-roof, a new porch cover or a remodel that moves plumbing can each need something different, and the city makes that call. Because Kemah shares the 77565 ZIP code with Clear Lake Shores, we confirm which city your lot is actually in before we start, and we write the answer into the scope. On a bay-front lot, floodplain questions get asked early on anything that adds space.
The jobs that come up here
Wind damage roof replacement covers the roof where seal strips have failed across the slopes and more shingles lift with each blow. A single torn slope gets a repair price instead, and we tell you which you have. Asphalt shingle replacement is the plain answer for a roof that has reached the end of its life without a storm forcing the issue: granules gone, edges curled, nails backing out. Salt air shortens the life of exposed metal on any roof here, so new drip edge, flashing and pipe boots go into the scope along with the shingles, and we name the materials.
Deck replacement suits a bay-side deck whose boards or framing have gone soft, and the footings, posts and connectors get as much attention as the boards, with hardware rated for salt. If a porch is sound and you want more use out of it, sunroom construction can turn it into a room that keeps the bay view and shuts out the weather, with the roof tie-ins planned for wind. Inside, bathroom renovation keeps the layout and replaces tile, fixtures, lighting and a fan that can keep up with the humidity coming off the water.
- Asphalt shingle replacement Replacing an asphalt roof is a day of controlled demolition followed by careful building.
- Bathroom renovation If the tub, toilet and vanity are already in the right places, nothing has to move.
- Deck replacement A deck that’s soft underfoot usually has bigger problems underneath than on top.
Plenty of roofs we look at need a repair or nothing at all. If that is yours, you will hear it from us first.
Kemah’s name means wind in my face. What does that mean for a porch roof?
It means the porch roof has to be tied to the house and to its posts well enough to resist uplift. We check the connections, the flashing where it meets the wall and the condition of the posts. Shingles alone do not hold a porch roof down, however new they are.
Is it worth closing in a porch on a bay-front Kemah house?
It can be, if the porch structure is sound and the roof over it can be tied in properly. A sunroom on the water needs windows and framing that handle wind and salt, and the City of Kemah will have a say in what the work requires. We look at the existing porch and tell you whether it is a good base to build on.
What should I check on my Kemah roof before hurricane season?
Walk the yard and look up at the ridge, the edges and any vent pipes. Missing ridge caps, lifted edges and rust stains near pipes are the warning signs. If you see any, have it inspected before June. If you see none, a professional look every year or two still makes sense on the bay.
Can you match the look of an older two-story Kemah house when you add a porch cover?
We can match roof pitch, trim and shingle color closely, so a new cover looks like it belongs. Exact matches on older materials are not always possible, and when they are not, we tell you and show you the closest options in daylight.
How often should the exposed metal on a bay-front roof be replaced?
There is no fixed schedule. It depends on the metal, how it was installed and how much salt spray it gets. We check flashing, drip edge and pipe boots at every inspection and replace them once rust has started through.
Close by
We also work in Clear Lake Shores, Seabrook, El Lago, Bacliff, League City. The whole list is on the Galveston County page.
We are based in Cypress and work across twelve counties around Houston. Leland Cannon retired from the Army as a First Sergeant; Geoff Schardien served in the Air Force. The scope you get is in writing, and the person who wrote it answers the phone.