Cedar Shake Replacement on a Perkasie Farmhouse — CertainTeed Landmark Pro on Complex Roofline

This Perkasie farmhouse presented one of the more technically demanding projects in our portfolio — a complex roofline with three dormers, two open valleys, a covered porch section, and original cedar shake shingles that had been deteriorating for years before the owners contacted us. The shakes had split, curled, and lost their weatherproofing across the majority of the roof surface, with the covered porch section in the worst condition from chronic moisture exposure.

Cedar shakes are installed over skip-sheathing — horizontal boards spaced apart to allow air circulation — which is incompatible with modern asphalt shingle installation. Before any new material could go down, we stripped all shakes and installed solid 1/2-inch plywood over the entire skip-sheathing structure, creating a continuous nailing surface and adding meaningful structural rigidity to the 80-year-old framing. All three dormers required custom step flashing at the sidewalls and new counter flashing embedded into the brick at the dormer faces.

The finished system is CertainTeed Landmark Pro in Moire Black — a heavier, 50-year architectural shingle with a slate-like shadow profile that suits the farmhouse’s character. The intricate valley and dormer work took two of the five days. The visual transformation from weathered gray shakes to the structured black shingle profile was substantial.