Two thirds of Lubbock's housing was built before 2000, and the distribution is unusually flat — the 1970s and the 2010s are within 173 units of each other, and no decade since the 1950s falls below ten percent of the stock. That means steady replacement demand across the whole city rather than one aging tract. Layer on 115 distinct hail days in 26 years and the honest read is that most Lubbock homes are on their second covering and plenty are on their third.
Roof Experts is the residential roofing partner Lubbock TX property owners trust. We bring DFW-quality crews and materials to every Lubbock project — from asphalt, metal, tile, and slate to inspections and full residential roofing. Need an estimate? Call Roof Experts at (469) 936-7663 or request your free roof inspection online.
Lubbock publishes an exemption list at Art. 28.05, Division 2, and it is long: detached accessory structures under 200 square feet, fences to seven feet, oil derricks, retaining walls under four feet, water tanks, sidewalks and driveways, finish work like painting and tiling, temporary stage sets, shallow prefab pools, shade cloth, playground equipment, certain window awnings, movable partitions. Roofing and re-roofing are not on it. Austin, by contrast, explicitly exempts a shingle-for-shingle re-roof outside its wildland interface. Lubbock does not, and a roofer who tells you no permit is needed on your house is either wrong or is not planning to pull one.
Lubbock amended IRC section R908.3.1.1 and added asphalt, fiberglass and composition shingles to the list of existing coverings over which a recover is prohibited. The model code does not list them. Read plainly, that means a Lubbock homeowner cannot lay a second layer of shingles over the first the way a homeowner in some other Texas cities still can. It is a tear-off market by ordinance. Before we put that in writing on your proposal we read the current adopted text back to the building official, because it is a strong claim and we would rather be right than fast.
The ACS five-year estimates put 80,042 of Lubbock's units in single-family detached or attached structures — 67.8 percent, the highest single-family share of the Texas markets we track outside the immediate Garland area. Built 1979 or earlier: 52,785 units. Built 1969 or earlier: 34,605. Those are homes on their third covering or later, often with original decking, original flashing details and a ventilation scheme designed before anyone thought hard about it. We scope the whole assembly on a house that age, not just the shingle.
Sec. 22.06.112 bars permitted haulers from collecting at single-family residences, and Division 3 requires a permit for contract removal of waste material in the first place. The practical effect at your address is the same one Waco reaches by a different route: the roll-off does not come from a private hauler. We plan tear-off staging, ground protection and load-out around that constraint rather than pretending it does not exist. One honesty note — Division 3 names garbage and refuse rather than construction debris specifically, so we confirm current handling with Solid Waste on each job instead of publishing a flat rule.
Lubbock maintains a dedicated Re-Roofing page through Building Safety, and separately publishes a document titled 'A Word of Caution About Roofing Contractors.' A city that goes to the trouble of writing that second document is telling you something about the local market. We treat the city's current published procedure and inspection requirements as governing over anything on our own site, and we confirm them with Building Safety at (806) 775-2087 before we write your scope.
Art. 28.04 exempts homeowners working on their own primary residence, property owners working on their own rental or business property, and full-time maintenance personnel from the registration requirement — provided none of them hold themselves out publicly as providing contracting services. Everyone you hire falls outside that exemption and must be registered, carrying $100,000-per-occurrence general liability and a $20,000 surety bond. Ask to see both. A registered, bonded contractor is a verifiable fact, not a marketing claim.
We get on the roof, photograph what we find, and look at decking condition, flashing, penetrations, ventilation and the state of any previous repair. On a home built before 1980 — nearly 45 percent of Lubbock's stock — we expect to find at least one thing that was not visible from the driveway. You get the photographs whether or not you hire us.
Because a Lubbock re-roof is permitted work and cannot be a recover, the scope is a tear-off scope from the start. We put the permit, the deck repair allowance, the ventilation plan and the debris handling in writing before you sign, and we tell you plainly which parts are allowances and which are fixed. If your claim involves an insurer, we work the scope against their estimate line by line rather than around it.
The deck is only visible once. We inspect and photograph it with the shingles off, replace what needs replacing, and get the underlayment and flashing in before the crew leaves. Lubbock's afternoon wind is a scheduling fact, not an excuse — sections are sized so nothing stays open into it.
We call the required inspections, do a magnet sweep and a ground walk with you, and hand over the documentation: permit record, material and warranty registration, and the deck and flashing photographs from step three. When you sell this house, that file is what lets a buyer's inspector stop asking questions.
A Class 4 impact-rated laminated shingle is the sensible starting point in a city that has recorded 89 days of inch-or-larger hail and 21 days of two-inch-or-larger hail in 26 years. The rating is earned in a steel-ball test, not in the field, so we are careful about what we promise: a Class 4 shingle resists bruising better than a standard three-tab and often earns an insurance discount, but no shingle is hail-proof against a 4.5-inch stone. Ask your carrier what the discount is before you decide.
Lubbock's adopted design wind speed is 115 mph, and the county logs sustained gradient wind in three consecutive winter months. That combination makes the fastening pattern as important as the shingle. Six-nail patterns, starter course at eaves and rakes, and properly sealed hip and ridge are what actually hold a shingle roof down here — and they are the first things a hurried installer skips.
Concealed-clip metal takes exposed fasteners out of the uplift equation and lasts far longer than any asphalt product. On a Lubbock home it also solves the low-slope porch or addition that a shingle should never have been on in the first place. We are direct about the trade-off: metal dents under giant hail, and that denting is cosmetic rather than functional, which is exactly the conversation to have with your carrier before installation rather than after.
Most major laminated shingles carry a limited lifetime warranty with a non-prorated initial period. Read what 'lifetime' means in the document — it is tied to your ownership, it prorates after the initial window, and on most products it covers material only unless the full system is installed by a certified contractor. We walk you through the actual terms before you choose a product.
Where the underlayment, starter, field shingle, hip and ridge and ventilation all come from one manufacturer and are installed by a contractor that manufacturer has certified, the coverage extends past material into workmanship for a defined term. This is the coverage worth having, and it is only available if the roof is actually built that way.
Our own coverage on installation, independent of the manufacturer. Flashing we formed, penetrations we sealed, fasteners we drove. If it leaks because of how we built it, we come back. We are based in Garland and we have been doing this long enough to still be answering the phone.
Don't see your question? Call us at (469) 936-7663 — we're happy to talk it through.
Yes. Lubbock's exemption list at Art. 28.05 is detailed and long, covering everything from small accessory structures to painting and carpeting, and roofing does not appear anywhere on it. That is a genuine difference from some Texas cities — Austin explicitly exempts a shingle-for-shingle re-roof outside its wildland interface. Lubbock does not. Before we write your scope we confirm the current procedure and required inspections with Building Safety at (806) 775-2087.
Almost certainly not. Lubbock amended IRC R908.3.1.1 and added asphalt, fiberglass and composition shingles to the list of existing coverings over which a recover is prohibited — a list the model code does not include them on. The amendment also bars a recover where the roof is water-soaked or deteriorated, or where two or more applications already exist. The practical effect is that Lubbock is a tear-off market by ordinance. Any contractor offering you a cheaper layover should be asked to show you the code section that permits it.
It means you have an easy verification step most Texas homeowners do not. Art. 28.04 requires any contractor pulling a permit to be registered with the building official, carrying general liability of at least $100,000 per occurrence including products and completed operations, plus a $20,000 surety bond. Homeowners working on their own primary residence are exempt; hired contractors are not. Ask any roofer bidding your house to show current registration. Registrations expire December 31 every year, so a certificate from last year proves nothing in February.
Sec. 22.06.112 bars permitted haulers from collecting at single-family residences in Lubbock, and Division 3 requires a permit for contract removal of waste material at all. That combination means a private roll-off at a Lubbock house is not the straightforward arrangement it is in most Texas cities. We plan ground protection, staging and load-out around it. Because Division 3 names garbage and refuse rather than construction debris specifically, we confirm handling with Solid Waste on each job rather than stating a blanket rule.
Later and tighter than in Dallas, and this matters if you are scheduling. Of Lubbock's 115 distinct hail days between 2000 and 2025, 45 fell in May and 30 in June — 65 percent of the entire season in two months. April is a distant third at 15 days. And in 26 years the city has recorded zero hail days in October, November or December, while Garland records hail into the autumn. A page written for a North Texas audience telling you April is hail month is simply wrong for your address.
The ACS 2020–2024 five-year estimates put the median year built at 1984 and show 79,445 units — 67.2 percent of the stock — built in 1999 or earlier. On a twenty-year asphalt service life, every one of those is on at least a second covering, and the 52,785 units built in 1979 or earlier are on a third or later. What is unusual about Lubbock is how evenly the stock is spread: no decade from the 1950s forward is under ten percent, and the 1970s and 2010s are nearly tied as the largest.
It is measurably different. NOAA logged 125 High Wind events in Lubbock County between 2000 and 2025 — those are non-thunderstorm gradient wind days — against seven in Dallas County and four in McLennan. They cluster in March, April, February, January and December, which is to say the season your roof is least likely to be under a storm watch. The strongest measured gust in the set was 82 mph on 14 March 2025 at 5:36 a.m., during a cyclone the NWS described as bringing severe winds, thick blowing dust and extremely critical fire weather.
Because of 11 May 1970. According to NWS Lubbock, the F5 tornado that struck the city that night killed 26 people, injured more than 1,500, cut an 8.5-mile path across roughly fifteen square miles and did about $250 million in 1970 dollars. The NWS states that studying the meteorological data from that night alongside an extensive damage survey contributed directly to the establishment of the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech and informed Dr. Ted Fujita's development of the Fujita scale. Modern wind damage engineering was substantially born in your city. We mention it because it is true, and because no other market we serve can say it.
Free inspection, honest scope, real warranty. Most service work scheduled within 24–48 hours.
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