Why North St. Paul is differentHow do you inspect a townhome association roof in North St. Paul?
Building by building, with measurements. On an association roof, each building has to be documented separately: every vent counted and measured, every gutter run and guard checked, and every photo tied to a building. That way the board can compare buildings and plan work without guessing. It's how we inspected the Penn Place townhomes in North St. Paul.
North St. Paul has a lot of shared roofs. About a third of households rent, and more than 1,000 homes are in buildings with five or more units, plus 320 attached townhomes (Census ACS 2020-2024). When one roof covers several owners, the documentation has to hold up for all of them.
At Penn Place, our inspector put a tape measure on the roof vents, pipe flashings and skylight domes so replacement parts could be matched exactly. Vent counts for each slope were written on the shingles in paint and photographed, so the tally is visible in the photo itself. On the eaves we photographed perforated gutter guards that were bent and pulled loose, a gutter end cap that had split, and each downspout with its measurement.
We also walked the ground: garage fronts, siding, fences and entries on every building. For an association, a roof report is only useful if the board can find the right building and the right slope months later, so we organize photos the same way.
