Seabrook’s roofs, where Clear Lake meets Galveston Bay
Of Seabrook’s 21.3 square miles, 15.9 are water, so the bay is the main fact of life here. Shrimpers and fishermen still bring their catch to the markets on Waterfront Drive every day, and every roof in town answers to the same weather they do.
Working in Seabrook
The Seabrook Company of Houston laid out the town site in March 1903, three years after the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 demolished the local school. The city incorporated in 1961 and had 13,618 residents at the 2020 census. Its historic downtown, built in the early 20th century, now holds antique shops and bed and breakfasts. Older buildings like those need a roofer who will repair what can be saved and match what has to be replaced. A building that has stood for a century has usually been reroofed many times, and the layers and patches tell you its history if you take the time to read them.
Hurricane Ike put Seabrook under mandatory evacuation on September 13, 2008, and afterward residents went without power and running water for up to a month. That is the part of a storm that does not make the news. A roof that leaks for weeks with no power to run fans or dehumidifiers turns a small hole into wet drywall, wet insulation and mold. Getting a damaged roof dried in fast is half of what matters on this stretch of the bay. The other half happens before the storm, with a roof whose edges, ridge and flashing were fastened for the wind in the first place.
Seabrook is its own city, so the City of Seabrook is the authority for permits inside its limits, and schools are part of Clear Creek ISD. Highway 146 is the main road through town, and State Highway 225 connects it back toward Houston. The neighbors are Kemah, Clear Lake Shores, El Lago, Taylor Lake Village and the former Shoreacres, all on the same water and all taking the same wind when a storm comes up the bay.
A mandatory evacuation means a house can sit empty for days with whatever the storm did to it, and nobody home to notice a drip. When you get back, look from the attic with a flashlight before you look from the yard: stains on the decking and wet insulation show up inside first, often before a single shingle looks wrong from the street. The photos you take right then are the ones your carrier will want, and they are the first thing we ask to see.
The jobs that come up here
Wind damage roof replacement and storm damage roof replacement cover what the Gulf sends between June and November, and emergency roofing covers the first night after. For a planned job, metal roof replacement and standing seam metal roofing hold up well on an exposed lot near the bay, and architectural shingle replacement nailed to the high-wind pattern is the shingle answer. If a downtown shop has a low-slope roof, commercial roof repair or flat roof replacement is the choice, depending on what an inspection shows. Whatever goes on, every fastener, vent and flashing piece should be rated for coastal exposure, because standard steel parts rust fast in salt air.
Decks take a beating here. Composite deck replacement swaps out wood that has gone gray and soft in the wet air, and composite deck installation gives a house facing the water a place to sit that will not need sanding every year. Inside, bathroom renovation and kitchen renovation are the common jobs, often in a house that has been repaired after a storm and never quite finished. Retail remodeling fits the antique shops and small businesses downtown that need a refresh without closing for long, and a bed and breakfast is a case for bathroom remodeling done one guest room at a time so the rest stay rentable.
- Architectural shingle replacement Plenty of older Houston subdivisions were built with three-tab shingles, and many of those roofs are at the end of their run.
- Metal roof replacement A metal replacement usually starts one of two ways: a worn shingle roof and an owner who wants something longer-lived, or an old metal roof leaking at its screws.
- Standing seam metal roofing Standing seam is the metal roof with no screws showing.
Plenty of roofs we look at need a repair or nothing at all. If that is yours, you will hear it from us first.
How fast can you dry in a roof after a hurricane?
As soon as it is safe to get on the roof and roads are open. We photograph the damage, then fasten a tarp or temporary underlayment over the openings. The permanent repair is scheduled once the weather and the supply houses catch up.
Do you work on older buildings in historic downtown Seabrook?
Yes, that is work we take on. Older buildings need repairs that match the original materials and do not trap moisture in old framing. We look at what is there before we recommend anything.
Is metal better than shingles on a bay lot in Seabrook?
Metal handles wind well and lasts a long time, and it costs more up front. A heavy architectural shingle, fastened correctly, is also a sound roof on the bay. You get a price for each and make the call.
What should I do with my roof before I evacuate for a storm?
Clear the gutters and downspouts, tie down or bring in anything loose in the yard and on the deck, and take photos of the roof and the house from every side. Those photos are your before picture if you need to file a claim later. Then leave when you are told to.
Can you remodel a small shop without closing it for weeks?
Often, by phasing the work. We do the dusty and noisy parts after hours or in sections, keep a clean path for customers and agree on the schedule in writing before we start. Some jobs do require a short closure, and if yours is one, we tell you up front.
Close by
We also work in Clear Lake Shores, Kemah, El Lago, Taylor Lake Village, Shoreacres. The whole list is on the Harris 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.