In St. George, the median home was built in 1977. We replace and repair roofs here and inspect after hail, starting with a free, photographed inspection.
St. George runs to about 2.8 square miles and roughly 2,154 people. It sits about 47 miles northwest of downtown Charleston. The community dates back to 1875. We cover ZIP code 29477.
No completed roof in St. George is logged in our job records yet.
The Dorchester County seat since the county was formed in 1897, a small town that grew up on both sides of the old South Carolina Railroad line (it began as George's Station) near where I-26 and I-95 cross.
From this stretch of building, houses in St. George sit on plywood or OSB, were first roofed in three-tab shingles, and are mostly on their second roof now. Trouble tends to be at the penetrations rather than across the field: the rubber collar on a pipe boot splits years before the shingles give out, and it is the leak we trace most often. Ridge vents were hit and miss in these decades, and OSB that stays damp for a season softens in a way plywood does not, something you feel underfoot rather than see from the yard.
St. George has 1,012 homes in the Census Bureau's count and a median year built of 1977. 96 of them (9%) went up before 1940 — 7th of 28 places on this site for pre-1940 share — and 112 (11%) in 2000 or later. The 1980s were the busiest decade, adding 270 of today's homes (27%). That is above Dorchester County's 2%.
About 20 years is the usual service life of an asphalt shingle roof, by the figure in HUD's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide. On that yardstick the 900 homes in St. George built before 2000 (89%) have outlived at least one roof, and 37% (370 homes) go back before 1970, two roof lives and more. First replacements are arriving on the 24 homes built in the 2000s, while the 88 built since 2010 are mostly still on the roof they were built with. Older houses are where a second layer laid over the first turns up, and that layer is what hides soft decking.
By building type: 579 detached houses (57%), 0 attached (0%). 212 homes (21%) sit in two- to nine-unit buildings. The count also takes in 221 mobile homes, which are a different kind of roof job. 404 of 832 occupied homes (49%) are lived in by their owners. Read together, those figures point toward flat and low-slope sections, which turn up more on attached and multi-unit buildings.
| Built | Homes | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1940 | 96 | 9% | |
| 1940s | 66 | 7% | |
| 1950s | 105 | 10% | |
| 1960s | 103 | 10% | |
| 1970s | 198 | 20% | |
| 1980s | 270 | 27% | |
| 1990s | 62 | 6% | |
| 2000s | 24 | 2% | |
| 2010s | 88 | 9% | |
| 2020 or later | 0 | 0% |
Census ACS 2020–2024, tables B25034, B25035, B25024 and B25003: 1,012 homes, 832 occupied. Survey estimates.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center logged no reports of hail 1 inch or larger within 5 miles of St. George’s center from 2016 through 2025. That is a gap in the reports rather than proof that no hail fell: reports come from spotters and the public.
Nothing St. George publishes says whether a like-for-like re-roof needs a permit. We call the department before the job and pull whatever is required.
St. George does not publish the code edition it currently enforces, so this page does not name one. Worth asking any contractor which edition they are building to.
We could not find a published number for the building department, so this page does not print one. The town's zoning ordinance says a Building Inspector designated by the town enforces the building code the Town Council adopts. The department page is here.
Design wind here is set by location, not one figure for the whole area: across greater Charleston the published ultimate design wind speeds run 133–150 mph, depending on where a house stands. The building department for St. George can tell you which figure applies. What it does to a roof is in the roofing code guide.
Also in Dorchester County:
| City | Re-roof permit | Code | Median built |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. George | Not published | Not published | 1977 |
| Unincorporated Dorchester County | Yes | 2021 IRC | — |
| Ridgeville | Yes | 2021 IRC | 1977 |
| Summerville | Yes | 2021 IRC | 2001 |
All 4 Dorchester County cities side by side →
Nothing published settles it for St. George, so the department gets the question before work starts and any permit it wants is pulled by us.
Median year built 1977, by the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 estimates. Of 1,012 homes, 900 were built before 2000 and 96 before 1940, so most roofs in St. George are not the first one the house has had.
Not yet: no completed roof in St. George is in our job records, so this page shows no job count.
Researched 2026-10-24; housing, Census ACS 2020–2024; hail, NOAA SPC. Sources: saintgeorgesc.org · saintgeorgesc.org · saintgeorgesc.org · img1.wsimg.com · img1.wsimg.com · img1.wsimg.com · img1.wsimg.com · img1.wsimg.com · saintgeorgesc.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · www.scstatehouse.gov · www2.census.gov · data.census.gov · www.spc.noaa.gov. Rules and staff change; check with the jurisdiction.
