Oshkosh Premium Roofing: Replacement, Repair & Leak Work
Expert roofing for homes and commercial buildings around the lake. You get a written report on every plane of your roof, hire us or not.
- ✓Wisconsin issues no roofer's license, so we show you the permit and the Dwelling Contractor credential instead
- ✓Every plane of the roof priced and photographed separately, lakeward side first
- ✓We check the metal roof question with the Planning Division before quoting a city address
- ✓Written workmanship warranty that names the flashings it covers
Why Oshkosh Chooses Oshkosh Premium Roofing
- ✓We ask what direction the wind was blowing when you saw the stain, because on this shore that answer separates a driven-water path from an actual hole faster than an hour on the roof does
- ✓Hose testing is done up the slope and up the wall, never just straight down, since water that entered sideways will not reproduce under a test that respects gravity
- ✓We will quote two planes rather than four when the lakeward side is spent and the street side is not, and we will tell you plainly what a two-plane roof costs you in color match
- ✓Underlayment run and headlap are line items you can compare between bidders, not assumptions folded into a price per square
- ✓We turn down coatings on steep-slope asphalt, tile conversions without an engineer's letter, and any overlay on a house already carrying two layers
- ✓When the honest answer is that your roof is intact and your money belongs in flashing and masonry rather than in a new roof, that is what the written report says
How It Works
We Read the Roof Plane by Plane
We walk what can be walked safely and put a pole camera on what cannot, then record each plane separately: exposure, headlap, seal condition, flashing leg heights, and how the drip edge meets the trough. The east and south planes get the longest look, because on this side of the lake they are the ones carrying the water load.
We Look From Inside Too
Driven water shows up on the underside long before it shows up on the shingle. We check sheathing edges, rafter tails, the inboard face of the fascia and the wall line under any dormer or sidewall, and we ask what direction the wind was blowing the last time you saw a stain. That one answer narrows the search more than anything on the roof.
You Get the Report Whether You Hire Us or Not
Dated photographs, organized by plane, with the measurements written next to them and a plain sentence saying what we think is wrong and what it will cost to be wrong about it. If the answer is that you should spend nothing this year, that is what the report says, and we will put it in writing so you can hold us to it.
We Build the Water Path First
Underlayment goes down to the run we quoted, the starter course and drip edge go in the sequence we quoted, flashings are formed to the leg heights we quoted, and only then does shingle go on. We photograph each of those stages before it gets covered, because once the roof is finished nobody can tell from the ground whether any of it happened.
Our Roofing Services in Oshkosh, WI
Roof Replacement
Most roofs in this city do not wear out evenly at all. The plane facing Lake Winnebago runs years ahead of the plane facing the street, and a number written from the driveway has never once seen the side that is actually finished.
Roof Leak Repair
The most useful question we ask on a leak call is not about the roof at all. It is which way the wind was blowing the last time your ceiling got wet.
Storm Damage Restoration
Storms reach this county from two directions and they do two unrelated things to a roof. Most restoration work in Wisconsin is written for the first kind.
Hail Damage Roofing
Hail is real in Winnebago County, and it is also the hazard people here overestimate relative to the one they cannot see. We inspect for it properly, and we say so straight out when the thing you actually have is weathering rather than impact.
Wind Damage Roofing
The variable that decides wind damage here is not speed and not how long a gust holds. It is compass direction, because only one quadrant around Oshkosh has water in it, and that quadrant does something different to a roof.
Roof Inspections
An inspection here should start on the side of the house nobody photographs, and it should start indoors. Beginning at the street elevation is how a lakeward plane carrying six years of driven water gets written up as being in fair condition.
Asphalt Shingle Roofs
Nearly every steep roof in this city is asphalt, so the real decision is never the material itself. It is where the extra money goes.
Metal Roofing
Before anything else about metal, a fact specific to this address. The City of Oshkosh states that metal roofs are not allowed on residential buildings in the city unless they meet certain guidelines and are approved by the Planning Division.
Tile Roofing
We service tile and slate in this city and we very rarely recommend installing new. Roofers do not usually write that on a page meant to sell the work, so here is the reasoning behind it rather than just the conclusion.
Flat & Low-Slope Roofing
A low-slope roof is designed for water that falls straight down and then runs to a drain. Beside a lake ten miles wide, a meaningful share of the water does not arrive straight down, and the roof behaves differently than the drawing says it will.
Roof Coatings & Sealing
Coating is a real product with a narrow job, and most of what gets sold under that name in this state is a way of postponing a decision. We do coat, on low-slope roofs only, and we schedule it around the wind rather than around the calendar.
Roof Ventilation
This is the page where we usually end up installing less than the customer came for. Oshkosh's older stock is full of gable-end louvers, and on a lakeward gable a louver is an opening aimed straight at open water.
Skylights
The first decision on a skylight in this city is not the unit. It is which plane it goes on, and we will argue for the sheltered one nearly every time even if the room reads slightly differently for it.
Gutters & Downspouts
More than half the gutter calls we take in this city are not about gutters. Water appears behind or above the trough during a hard blow, the homeowner concludes the gutter is undersized, and the upgrade they buy does not change anything.
Fascia & Soffit
Fascia on this shore rots from behind. The face you can see holds paint and looks fine, the back of the board is soft, and by the time it shows at the front the rafter tail behind it has usually gone too.
Chimney Flashing
We flash chimneys correctly and we still tell a fair number of customers that flashing was never their problem. On the lumber-era masonry in this city, the water is frequently coming through the brick itself, and no amount of metal work fixes that.
Emergency Tarping
We tarp, and we also talk people out of tarping several times a season. Getting that call right matters, because a badly anchored tarp on a lakeward slope does more damage than the opening it was covering.
Commercial Roofing
On a commercial roof beside this lake the membrane is rarely what fails first. The openings are.
Insurance Claim Help
We document storm damage and we will meet your adjuster on the roof. We are not going to file for you, negotiate for you, or take an interest in your claim, and on the failure this city sees most we will tell you not to file at all.
What Oshkosh Customers Say
Two bids said full tear-off. These guys measured every slope and showed me the east side was shot and the west side had a decade left. They did two planes, told me straight the color would not match, and it does not. I saved most of the money and I knew that going in.
Our ceiling only ever stained in certain storms and nobody could find it. First thing they asked was which way the wind blows when it happens. Turned out to be step flashing at the dormer with a leg too short. Fixed in an afternoon after four years of guessing.
I called about a metal roof and got a straight answer that the city has to sign off on it and mine probably would not go through easily. He could have taken a deposit and let me find out. Ended up with shingles and a much better underlayment package.
They flashed the chimney and then told me the flashing was never my problem, the brick was soaking through, and handed me two mason names. Charged me for the flashing they actually did and nothing else. That is the first roofer who has ever done that here.
Oshkosh Premium Roofing handles roof replacement, leak repair, storm work and commercial low-slope roofing across Oshkosh and Winnebago County. We install laminated asphalt shingle, standing-seam and exposed-fastener steel panel, mechanically fastened TPO and EPDM, seamless aluminum trough and the sheet metal flashings tying the whole assembly together.
The part of the job we do differently is scoping. Every roof we price is read one plane at a time, because in this city the planes do not wear at the same rate. The side of your house that faces open water takes a load the street side never sees, and a square-foot price averaged across four planes hides that instead of pricing it.
So the quote you get names the underlayment run, the headlap, the drip edge and starter sequence, the flashing leg heights and the fastener pattern, plane by plane. Two bids written that way can be compared. A single price per square cannot be, and it is usually the number hiding the detail that fails first. We would rather lose a job on price than win one on a vague figure, and we say that at the estimate.
About Oshkosh Premium Roofing in Oshkosh, WI
Oshkosh Premium Roofing works the Lake Winnebago basin, from the Oshkosh lakefront south to Fond du Lac, east across to Stockbridge and Chilton, and west into the Wolf River towns. We replace and repair asphalt shingle roofs, install steel panel where the jurisdiction allows it, run low-slope membrane on commercial buildings, and do the flashing and sheet metal work that most of our leak calls turn out to be about.
The reason we scope by plane rather than by square is that this shore is asymmetric in a way most of Wisconsin is not. Oshkosh sits on the west side of a lake thirty miles long and ten miles wide, so the prevailing westerly leaves town over water while the rain-bearing easterly arrives over it. That single fact decides which slope fails first, which repair is worth doing and which upgrade is a waste of your money here.
Do not hire us if the lowest figure in town is the thing you are shopping for. We will not bury one layer of shingle under another to dodge a tear-off. We will not sell a premium shingle when the underlayment run is what needs the money. And we will not coat steep-slope asphalt at all. Somebody asks for one of those most months, and we send them down the road.
Recent Projects Across the Lake Winnebago basin
Service Areas
Oshkosh Premium Roofing serves Oshkosh, WI and surrounding communities including:
Commercial Roofing in Oshkosh and Across the Lake Winnebago Basin
We maintain and replace low-slope roofs on the shops, warehouses, clinics and municipal buildings between the Oshkosh lakefront and the Fond du Lac end of the lake. On a flat roof this close to open water the membrane is rarely what fails first.
The openings are: equipment curbs, relief hoods, vent throats and the windward parapet, all of which take water from the side rather than from above. We survey those before we survey the field, price them as separate lines, and give you a maintenance schedule tied to which face of the building they sit on.
- ✓Mechanically fastened and fully adhered TPO and EPDM, with the seam method named on the quote
- ✓Rooftop equipment curbs raised and re-flashed where the existing height cannot shed sideways water
- ✓Relief hoods and vent throats fitted with extended returns on the lake-facing elevation
- ✓Windward parapet coping and cleat detailing checked before any field work is priced
- ✓Tapered polyisocyanurate laid out for where water actually goes in a hard east wind
- ✓Drain and scupper capacity checked against the ponding that shows up on the upwind side
- ✓Infrared and core-cut moisture surveys before a tear-off is recommended over a recover
- ✓Annual and semi-annual maintenance agreements with a written photo record each visit
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the city make you pull a permit just for shingles?
Yes. The City of Oshkosh Inspection Services Division requires a permit for installation or replacement of roofing, including decking. The city also limits you to shingles over no more than one existing layer, so if your house already carries two, an overlay is off the table and the tear-off is not optional.
We pull the permit under our own credential rather than asking you to take it out as a homeowner, which is a thing some contractors here will suggest and which leaves you holding the inspection.
Can I put a metal roof on my house in the city?
Not by right. The City of Oshkosh states that metal roofs are not allowed on residential buildings in the city unless they meet certain guidelines and are approved by the Planning Division. That is a real gate, and it is the first thing we check before quoting metal on a city address.
Outside the city limits, in Black Wolf, Nekimi, Vinland, Taycheedah or Stockbridge, the question is a construction question rather than a zoning one. We will tell you which situation you are in before you fall in love with a panel profile.
Why does my roof only leak in some storms and not others?
Because it is probably not a hole. A roof that stays dry through a long steady rain and then wets a ceiling during a shorter, windier one is almost always taking water horizontally.
Rain crossing Lake Winnebago arrives on an east or southeast wind with nothing to slow it, hits the lakeward planes close to flat, and gets pushed back up through laps and flashings that gravity alone would never move it through. Note the wind direction next time. It is the single most useful thing you can tell us.
Which side of my roof wears out first here?
Usually the east or the south one, which surprises people, because the wind you feel most days is out of the west. That westerly is the dry wind and at Oshkosh it blows away from the lake. The wet winds are the ones with water behind them, and on this shore that means the east through south quadrant.
Walk around your own house after a driving rain and look at which fascia is dark. It is rarely the one facing the street.
Is winter a bad time to have roof work done in Oshkosh?
It is a bad time to seal shingles, because asphalt tabs need warmth to bond and we hand-seal anything installed cold. It is a good time to inspect. Once the lake ices over, the driven-water load stops for several weeks, which is the only stretch of the year when a lakeward plane is not being loaded and you can look at it in a settled state. We book condition inspections into that window on purpose.
Will my insurance cover a leak that only happens in a hard wind?
Usually not, and we would rather say so now than after you have filed. Wind and hail policies pay for physical damage to the roof covering. Water driven through an intact assembly is not damage to the covering, it is the covering working as installed under a load it was never detailed for. That reads as maintenance to most adjusters. A denied claim still sits on your record, so we would rather scope the repair and quote it honestly.