Roofing Contractors in Aurora, MO

Aurora is where the storm became a record-breaker

The NWS event summary is unusually direct about it: the left-moving supercell "reached peak intensity as it reached Aurora". The reports bear it out. 2.75 inch hail in Aurora at 11:22 a.m., 2.75 inch three miles south-southwest at 11:24, and 4.00 inch one mile north-northwest at the same minute. Marionville, six miles east, logged 1.75 inch at 11:28 and again at 1:29 in the afternoon. Purdy and Wheaton to the southwest had already taken 2.00 and 2.50 inch as the storm came up from Barry County.

From Aurora the storm tracked north-northeast across Republic and northwest Springfield, and everything that happened in Greene County afterwards happened because of what the updraft did over Lawrence County first.

Why Aurora’s housing stock changes the answer

Aurora is an older town than the Springfield suburbs and it shows on the roofs. A lot of early-twentieth-century and mid-century housing, a lot of steeper pitches with cut-up planes and dormers, and a lot of roofs that are on their third or fourth covering. Three things follow from that, and they are all things we have run into repeatedly here this year:

• Multiple layers. Two and occasionally three roofs stacked up. That adds tear-off cost, it adds weight the framing was never asked to carry, and it means nobody has looked at the decking since the Carter administration.
• Board decking rather than sheet. On the older houses the deck is often 1x6 or 1x8 boards with gaps. That is fine, it changes how underlayment and fasteners work, and a crew who has only ever nailed into OSB will make a mess of it.
• No ventilation at all. Nobody put a ridge vent on a 1928 house, and if a previous reroof did not add one, that roof has been cooking every summer since.

Steeper pitch also means more labour and staging, so Aurora replacements price higher per square than a Republic ranch of the same area. Worth knowing before you compare quotes with a friend in another town.

Lawrence County, not Greene

Aurora is in Lawrence County, so neither Springfield’s permit process nor Greene County’s applies. The city runs its own building department. We handle the permit; we mention it because it is one more reason a crew that turned up from three states away may not know what they are doing here.

It is also worth saying plainly: Aurora took as much damage as anywhere in southwest Missouri and has a fraction of the contractor capacity of the Springfield metro. That has drawn a lot of out-of-town operators. The same three questions apply as everywhere else, and the deductible one is the tell: if somebody offers to cover it, that offer is illegal under Missouri statute and it tells you what kind of job you would be getting.

Getting to Aurora

It is about half an hour southwest of the shop on MO-14 and US-60, and yes, we come out there. There is no travel surcharge. Inspections are free and if you want three of your street done in an afternoon, ring together and we will schedule it that way; it is easier for us too.