Serving Elk Rapids, Elk Lake & the East Bay Shore
Elk Rapids has Grand Traverse Bay on one side and Elk Lake on the other, with a river running through the middle of town. That's a lot of water around a house. Here's how we keep it out.
Cherrytown is the hardest working company i have ever seen. We had problem figuring out where the leak was and they onpersevered until it was repaired correctly. Any roof repairs will be excellently taken care of by this company. Very Highly Recommended!
Our office is at 104 S Union Street Suite 208 in downtown Traverse City. From there, Elk Rapids is about 17 miles northeast, usually under half an hour up US-31 along the East Bay.
That's an easy trip for an estimate, and close enough that when a storm off the bay pulls shingles loose or a gutter run comes down, we can get out to look at it rather than leaving it for next week.
Abram S. Wadsworth platted the town in 1852 under the name Stevens. In 1858 he renamed it Elk Rapids, after finding elk antlers there. When Antrim County was organized in 1863, Elk Rapids became its first county seat, a role it held until the seat moved to Bellaire in 1879.
Its industrial years followed. The firm of Dexter and Noble began building an iron furnace here in 1872, and it produced its first iron on June 24, 1873. The furnace burned charcoal made from the local hardwood forests and smelted ore brought down by lake freighter from the Upper Peninsula. It was later run as the Elk Rapids Iron Company and was the town's main employer until the timber ran out around the end of World War I. The Island House, built by Edwin Noble in 1865, still stands from that era.
Elk Rapids was incorporated as a village in 1900 and is now the largest incorporated community in Antrim County, with 1,529 people in the 2020 census. The Elk River runs through the middle of the village from Elk Lake, Michigan's 15th-largest inland lake and the lowest in the Elk River Chain of Lakes, to the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay.
Wind is the first thing. With the bay to the west and Elk Lake to the east, homes here take wind across open water from more than one direction. That wind lifts shingle edges, works under flashing and drives rain sideways into siding seams and under trim.
Moisture comes next. Houses close to the water stay damp longer, and that is hard on the wood behind the siding and gutters: soffit, fascia and trim boards that stay wet rot from the back. Add Northern Michigan's freeze-thaw cycle and lake-effect snow, and small gaps become soft wood fast.
Older homes in the village add their own problems: roofs with more than one layer of shingles over the original deck, and attics that were never vented for year-round heat. Where warm air leaks into a cold attic, it melts snow from underneath and builds ice dams at the eaves that push water back up under the shingles.
So we treat the outside of the house as one system: ice and water shield at the eaves and valleys, attic ventilation fixed, flashing done properly at every wall and chimney, and rotted trim replaced before anything new goes over it.
Repair and replacement for roofs that take wind off the bay and the lake: edges and ridge fastened to spec, flashing detailed at chimneys and walls, and ice and water shield where ice dams start.
More about roofing →Low upkeep and well suited to a damp shoreline, as long as the wrap, window flashing and trim behind it are done right. That is where water gets in on a lake house.
More about vinyl siding →Vented soffit is half of how an attic breathes, and on a damp lot it is often the first thing to go soft. Replacing it is usually part of fixing ice dams for good.
More about soffit →Fewer seams to leak and fewer places for debris to catch. We size them for the roof they drain so water ends up away from the foundation, not against the fascia.
More about seamless gutters →Everything we do on the outside of a house:
We come out to Elk Rapids, walk the outside of the house and get into the attic where we can, because that is where ice dams and soft decking start.
You get the scope, the materials and the price in writing before anything starts. If a repair will do, we tell you.
Our own crew, working to the manufacturer spec, scheduled around the weather rather than ahead of a storm.
We magnet-sweep for nails, haul the debris away and go over the finished job with you before we leave.
Elk Rapids is a small town, and people talk to their neighbors about who did their roof. That's the way we want to be judged. If a repair will do, we'll tell you instead of selling you a replacement you don't need, and we'll leave the site cleaner than we found it.
Tell us what your roof, siding or gutters are doing and we'll come out and take a look.
Get A Free Estimateor call (231) 377-3620