South Houston, the old Dumont townsite
C.S. Woods of the Western Land Company founded this place as Dumont in 1907, and it became the city of South Houston in 1913. It is a separate city with its own government, boxed in by Houston and Pasadena, and that is the first thing we sort out on any job here.
Working in South Houston
Early South Houston shipped produce on the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad until the hurricane of 1915 destroyed many of its local industries. The town grew fast from the 1940s into the early 1960s and had 7,523 people by 1960. If your house dates from that growth period, it is now sixty to eighty years old, and some of what you live with was done by owners you never met. That is the reason we open the attic hatch before we open our mouths about price: the repairs of the last sixty years are all up there, layered on top of each other.
At the 2020 census the city had 16,153 residents on 7.8 square kilometers, about three square miles, all of it land. That is a built-out town with houses close together, and roof work in it means close neighbors and a crew that keeps its debris on your lot. Spencer Highway and Old Galveston Road are the main routes through, and material deliveries are timed so the truck is not parked across a busy road at rush hour. On a street of close-set houses, we also tell the neighbors on both sides when tear-off day is, because nobody likes finding out from the noise.
Permits for work inside the city go through the City of South Houston. Schools are part of Pasadena ISD, which leads some people to assume the town belongs to Pasadena; it does not. The first South Houston library opened in 1927, a fair sign of how long this has been a town in its own right. We check the city line against your address before the scope is written, because on a street near the edge it is easy to guess wrong.
An older bathroom tends to hide the same few problems: a cast-iron drain line rusted thin, a subfloor softened by years of small leaks around the toilet, and a tub set without a real waterproof layer behind the tile. None of that shows until the floor comes up. So the scope for a bathroom in an older South Houston house carries a line for what we may find, explained before work starts, and anything we do find gets photographed and shown to you before we fix it.
The jobs that come up here
A house that has stood since the 1950s may be on its third or fourth roof, and roof replacement down to the decking is the right call once layers have built up. Asphalt shingle replacement keeps the street looking the way it does, and impact-resistant shingles are worth a look if spring hail has cost you a roof before. If a storm already did the damage, hail damage roof replacement explains how we document it. Older houses here often have a low-pitched back porch or carport roof tied into the main one, and that tie-in gets rebuilt properly, with its own membrane where the slope is too low for shingles.
Inside, the jobs that make sense are the ones that make an older house easier to live in. Bathroom remodeling fits a small hall bath that never worked, kitchen renovation replaces cabinets and counters that have done their time, and veteran ADA remodeling helps an owner who wants to keep living here as stairs, tubs and narrow doorways get harder. Bedroom remodeling covers the back room that became storage and needs to be a bedroom again. Living room remodeling fits a front room that was closed off from the kitchen in an older plan, where taking out part of a wall makes a small house feel much bigger without adding a foot to it.
- Asphalt shingle replacement Replacing an asphalt roof is a day of controlled demolition followed by careful building.
- Hail damage roof replacement Hail damage on a shingle is a bruise in the mat, soft when you press it, usually with the granules knocked off in a rough circle.
- Impact-resistant shingles Impact-resistant shingles are built to take a hailstone without cracking through.
Plenty of roofs we look at need a repair or nothing at all. If that is yours, you will hear it from us first.
Is South Houston part of Houston or of Pasadena?
Neither. It is its own city, incorporated in 1913, with Houston and Pasadena on its borders. Work inside the city limits goes through the City of South Houston, and we confirm your address is inside them first.
How many layers of shingles can a roof carry?
Building rules generally allow no more than two, and an old house can reach that limit without its owner knowing. We do not lay a new roof over an old one. A full tear-off lets us see the decking and fix it, which is the only way to know what the new shingles are sitting on.
What does an older South Houston roof usually hide?
Soft decking along the eaves, old leaks around chimneys and vents, and sometimes a layer of shingles nobody mentioned when you bought the house. We check from the attic and the roof before pricing. Anything that turns up after tear-off gets photographed and shown to you first.
Can a small hall bathroom fit a walk-in shower?
Most can, if the tub goes. A 60-inch tub space usually converts to a walk-in shower with a low or no curb, a bench and grab bars. We check the drain location and the floor structure before we promise it.
Do you clean up nails on a tight city lot?
Every day, and once more at the end. The crew runs a rolling magnet over your yard, driveway and the strip along your neighbor’s side, and tarps go down over beds and walkways before the tear-off starts. You should not find a roofing nail in your tire a month later.
Close by
We also work in Pasadena, Galena Park, Deer Park, Brookside Village. The whole list is on the Harris County page.
Two owners, both veterans, one phone number. We inspect, photograph and tell you what the job really needs, including when it needs nothing yet. Military families and first responders take 10% off.