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Most Hoars Addition homeowners don’t discover a roofing problem during a dramatic storm. They find it during a home sale inspection, or when a neighbor gets a new roof and suddenly theirs looks ten years older than it is. The housing stock in this corridor — much of it built mid-century, sitting on the Dover-to-Smyrna stretch of U.S. Route 13 — carries a lot of quietly aging roofs that haven’t failed yet but are well past their prime.
When we complete the work properly, you stop managing the problem and start forgetting about it. No more watching the ceiling after a heavy rain. No more putting off the conversation about whether it’s time. A quality replacement on an older Hoars Addition home means you’re protected through the next nor’easter, the next humid Delaware summer, and the freeze-thaw cycling that Kent County delivers every single winter.
It also means your home is worth what it should be worth. In a market where the median sale price in the Cheswold area sits around $270,000, a roof that’s documented, warrantied, and done by a licensed contractor isn’t just peace of mind — it’s a real asset when it comes time to sell or refinance.
First State Roofing & Exteriors Co. is based in Smyrna — about 12 miles north of Hoars Addition on the same U.S. Route 13 corridor you drive every day. Kent and Sussex counties are our home territory, not a secondary market. The crews who show up have worked on homes throughout Hoars Addition and the surrounding area for over two decades, through the same weather patterns and the same building stock you’re dealing with.
We’re licensed through the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation, carry full General Liability and Workers’ Compensation insurance, and hold a 5.0-star rating across more than 63 verified Google and Facebook reviews. BBB accredited. We don’t subcontract — the team you talk to is the team on your roof.
Richard McCain, our owner, has his name on every job. That kind of accountability matters in a community as close-knit as the Cheswold–Hoars Addition corridor, where word travels fast and a bad experience doesn’t stay quiet.
It starts with a free inspection. One of our crew members comes out, gets on the roof, and gives you an honest assessment — not a sales pitch. For a lot of Hoars Addition homes, especially those with older asphalt shingles, this inspection catches things that aren’t visible from the ground: granule loss, failing sealant strips, cracked shingles from years of Kent County freeze-thaw cycling, or algae growth that’s been quietly eating into the material. You get a documented report with photos, which also serves as useful documentation if an insurance claim is part of the picture.
From there, you get a written estimate that spells out exactly what’s being done, what materials we’re using, and what the total cost is. No vague line items, no surprises at the end. If financing makes sense for your situation, that conversation happens here too — before anything is signed.
Since Hoars Addition is unincorporated, permitting runs through Kent County rather than a local municipal office. We handle that process on your behalf. On installation day, most residential replacements are completed in a single day. The site gets cleaned before our crew leaves — nails, debris, packaging, all of it. Customers consistently call this out in their reviews, and it’s not an accident.
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We handle the full range of residential roofing — replacement, installation, repair, emergency repair, inspection, and maintenance. For Hoars Addition homeowners, that means whether you’ve got a 40-year-old asphalt shingle roof that’s reached the end of its life, a storm-damaged ridge cap that needs a quick fix, or a flat or low-slope section that’s been leaking for a season, there’s a service that fits.
The housing stock in the Hoars Addition–Cheswold corridor includes a notable segment of manufactured and mobile homes, and we’re one of the few local contractors genuinely set up to serve them. EPDM rubber roofing and metal roofing — the systems most commonly found on manufactured homes — are both part of our service portfolio. That’s not a footnote; it’s a real capability that most roofing companies in the area quietly skip over.
Beyond roofing, we also handle siding, gutters, windows, and skylights. For an older home in this corridor that may need more than just a new roof, that means you’re not coordinating three separate contractors. Delaware’s humid climate accelerates wear on all of these systems at roughly the same pace, so addressing them together often makes more sense than spacing them out. We offer financing for larger projects and help navigate insurance claims for storm-damaged roofs from start to finish.
The honest answer is that you usually can’t tell from the ground, and that’s just true. Missing shingles or visible storm damage are obvious, but the more common scenario for homes in Hoars Addition and the Cheswold corridor is quieter deterioration: granule loss that’s been accumulating for years, sealant strips that have failed from repeated freeze-thaw cycling, or algae growth that’s compromised the shingle surface without producing an active interior leak yet.
A professional inspection gives you a documented picture of what’s actually happening. If the roof is under 15 years old and the damage is isolated, repair is often the right call. If it’s pushing 20–25 years or older — which describes a significant portion of the housing stock in Hoars Addition — replacement is usually more cost-effective than patching a system that’s near the end of its life. We’ll tell you which category you’re in, and the inspection is free.
It depends on the cause and your specific policy, but storm damage — wind, hail, falling debris — is typically covered under standard homeowner’s insurance in Delaware. The complication is that the claims process isn’t always straightforward. Adjusters assess damage on their own timeline, and the scope they document doesn’t always match what a contractor finds when they’re actually on the roof.
This is where having a contractor who works directly with insurance providers makes a real difference. We help Hoars Addition homeowners document damage properly, communicate with adjusters, and make sure the claim reflects the actual scope of work needed. Delaware sees tropical storm remnants and nor’easters regularly enough that storm-related roof damage is a genuine recurring issue in this corridor — not a rare edge case.
For most homes in Hoars Addition, architectural asphalt shingles are the practical choice — they’re durable, widely available, and well-suited to the Mid-Atlantic climate when installed correctly. The key detail for Kent County specifically is algae resistance. The region’s humid subtropical climate creates near-ideal conditions for Gloeocapsa magma, the algae that causes dark streaking on asphalt shingles. Algae-resistant shingles with copper or zinc granules are strongly recommended here — not an upsell, just the right material for this environment.
Ventilation and underlayment matter just as much as the shingle itself. Kent County’s winter freeze-thaw cycling — with January lows that regularly drop below freezing and then climb back above it — puts stress on roofing systems that aren’t properly installed. A roof that looks fine in October can develop problems by March if the underlayment or ventilation wasn’t addressed during installation. Metal roofing is also a solid long-term option for homeowners who want a 40–50 year lifespan and don’t want to think about it again.
Most residential roof replacements in Hoars Addition and the Cheswold area are completed in a single day. The size and complexity of the roof affect the timeline — a straightforward gable roof on a ranch-style home goes faster than a multi-pitch roof with dormers, skylights, or valleys — but one-day completion is the norm for standard residential work.
For Hoars Addition homeowners, that matters practically. This is a commuter community — most households are out the door early heading south on Route 13 toward Dover, the base, or state offices. You don’t need to take a day off work to supervise the job. Our crew arrives, completes the work, cleans the site, and you come home to a finished roof. The permitting process through Kent County is handled beforehand, so there are no delays waiting on approvals once the installation date is set. If weather creates a scheduling issue, you’ll know in advance — not the morning of.
After any significant storm moves through the Kent County corridor, out-of-town contractors start showing up door-to-door offering quick repairs. Some are legitimate. Many are not. The pattern is consistent: they pressure you to sign quickly, offer to “handle everything” with your insurance, and then either do substandard work or disappear before you can reach them if something goes wrong.
The simplest filter is verification. Ask for proof of licensing through the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation, ask for a certificate of General Liability and Workers’ Compensation insurance, and look up their BBB status. A contractor who’s been operating continuously in Delaware for over 22 years — with a verifiable address, a named owner, and 63+ documented reviews — is a fundamentally different situation than someone who registered an LLC last month. Storm chasers can’t offer manufacturer-backed warranties, can’t be held accountable by the state, and won’t be around when you need warranty service two years from now.
Yes. The Hoars Addition and Cheswold corridor includes a meaningful segment of manufactured and mobile homes, and it’s a segment that a lot of roofing contractors quietly don’t serve well — either because they lack the right materials knowledge or because they focus exclusively on steep-slope site-built residential work.
We handle EPDM rubber roofing and metal roofing, which are the systems most commonly found on manufactured homes. These roofs have different installation requirements, different failure modes, and different material considerations than a standard asphalt shingle replacement on a site-built home. If you own a manufactured home in Hoars Addition and have been told by other contractors that they “don’t really do that type of roof,” that’s not a universal limitation — it just means you haven’t called the right company yet. The same free inspection, written estimate, and warranty-backed installation process applies regardless of your property type.
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