Roofing in Cranston, RI, east side to west side.

Roofing in Cranston

Cranston Roofs: Two Very Different Sides of the City

Cranston has two sides, and the roofs show it. On the east side, Edgewood runs along the Providence River near Roger Williams Park, with established neighborhoods of older homes. Pawtuxet Village, shared with Warwick, is a compact historic village where the Pawtuxet River meets the bay. Many of these houses have been around for generations and have had more than one roof.

Through the middle of the city, villages like Knightsville, Eden Park, Arlington, Auburn and Oaklawn are full of capes, ranches, two-family homes and colonials on tighter lots. With neighbors close by, roof work there means planning ahead for things like dumpster placement and cleanup. Plenty of these homes still carry roofs that were put on decades ago, sometimes over an older layer.

Head west past Garden City and Cranston gets quieter. Western Cranston has bigger lots, newer homes, open space and farms. Those neighborhoods have their own roofing issues: larger roofs with more valleys and dormers, more trees, and, on many newer homes, the first full replacement coming due.

Cranston is a little inland from the open coast, but east-side homes near the river and bay still catch wind-driven rain in a nor’easter. And the whole city deals with the same freeze-thaw winters as the rest of Rhode Island, which are hard on worn shingles and old flashing.

Photos on this page are illustrations, not specific Cranston homes or our projects.