Roof Replacement in Okemos, Michigan

A township built in two big waves: the 1970s and the 1980s

Add the 1970s and 1980s together in the Census table above and you get 34.6 percent of all Okemos CDP housing — just over a third of the community — built across those two decades. Roughly 43 percent of Okemos housing predates 1980 outright, and about 75 percent predates 2000. The 1980s alone, at 18.0 percent, is the single largest decade on record.

Houses from that era are the ones most likely to have been re-covered already, which puts the Michigan Residential Code's two-layer limit directly in play: once a roof already carries two layers of any covering, the code requires a full tear-off rather than another layer on top. A tear-off is also the only way to honestly assess what is underneath on a house that age — sheathing condition, the state of the ice barrier at the eaves, and whether ventilation was ever more than a couple of gable vents.

Behind that older group sits a smaller wave from 1990 through 2009 — 13.9 percent in the 1990s and 10.2 percent in the 2000s, roughly a quarter of the community combined. Those houses are at or approaching their own first replacement. The 2010s brought another 14.8 percent, the newest meaningful share of Okemos housing, with almost nothing built in 2020 or later.

The Red Cedar River and the old village core

The Red Cedar River, a tributary of the Grand River, flows east to west through Okemos. Okemos was platted in 1841 by Freeman Bray as a village called Hamilton, later renamed for Chief Okemos, and its oldest area — around Ferguson Park and the Hamilton Building near the Four Corners — follows the old plank road that once ran between Detroit and Lansing. That older core is where plank decking and additions stacked over decades are most likely to turn up once a roof is opened.

Okemos also includes four Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian houses built between 1940 and 1958 — the Brauner House on Arrowhead, the Edwards House on Arrowhead, the Goetsch–Winckler House on Hulett Road, and the Schaberg House on Wrightwind Drive. Any work on a house like that starts with reading the roof in front of us rather than assuming anything about it.

Indian Hills is one of the community's older named subdivisions, developed from farmland sold to the Ehinger Realty Company in the late 1920s for a golf course and residential lots that were available by 1929; the Indian Hills Homeowners Association's records are archived locally. Tacoma Boulevard is another established street, with properties documented from roughly 1952 to 1970. Homes built before 1970 make up about a quarter of Okemos housing in the Census table above.

The Owens Corning system we register in Okemos

On Top Roofing is an Owens Corning Platinum Preferred Contractor, BBB A+ accredited, with HAAG Certified inspectors on staff. Platinum Preferred is the top tier of the Owens Corning contractor network, and the only tier able to register the Platinum Protection Roofing Limited Warranty: limited lifetime coverage on materials with a 50-year non-prorated period, limited lifetime workmanship non-prorated for the first 25 years, 130 mph wind resistance as standard and 160 mph enhanced, and 25-year algae resistance with Owens Corning hip and ridge. It transfers once to a buyer within 60 days of a sale.

The warranty requires the whole system rather than the shingle alone: Duration shingles with SureNail Technology, Owens Corning or an approved synthetic underlayment, Owens Corning hip and ridge, Owens Corning self-adhered ice and water barrier, starter shingles at the eaves and the rakes, and VentSure balanced ventilation, along with new flashings and new drip edge throughout. We install the full system as standard on every Okemos roof, whether it is an older house near the Four Corners, a 1970s or 1980s house that may already have been re-covered, or a 1990s or 2000s house on its original roof.

Storm damage and insurance in Okemos

After a wind event in Okemos — and the NOAA record above shows that is the kind of event Okemos actually gets — the pattern we typically find is limbs across a roof plane, lifted or creased shingles on the windward slope, a damaged ridge vent, and torn flashing where a branch came down across a valley. We inspect the roof, photograph what we find, and document it in writing, including which storm date it is tied to.

Where an insurance claim is involved, we document the damage thoroughly, provide the photographs and a written scope, and talk to your adjuster about what we found on the roof. We do not file your claim for you and we do not represent you against your insurer — that relationship is yours. What we do is make sure the adjuster sees what we saw, with dates and photographs attached. Our inspectors are HAAG Certified, a credential focused on identifying and documenting storm damage.