Roofing Contractor in Glen Burnie, MD

Local Conditions

Common Roofing Challenges in Glen Burnie, MD

• Prefabricated postwar construction that is not standard stick framing: the 1,200 Harundale houses of 1947 were built on welded steel frames over concrete slabs, with outside walls of brick, shingle, or aluminum siding over redwood
• Mixed original exterior claddings across a single development, so a Harundale roof and siding job has to account for brick, shingle, and aluminum-over-redwood walls on neighboring houses
• An entire community built in one shot, in what was one of the largest prefabricated developments in America, which means uniform roof geometry and a shared replacement clock across thousands of residents
• Older masonry landmarks nearby of a wholly different era, including St. Alban's Episcopal Church of 1904, many of whose bricks date back to Marley Chapel, an early Maryland parish from the 1730s
• Heavy arterial exposure with Crain Highway open since 1927 and Ritchie Highway since 1939, the road that carried nearly all Baltimore traffic bound for Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge until I-97 opened in the 1980s, so roofs here collect road grit continuously

About Glen Burnie, Anne Arundel County

Glen Burnie is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Anne Arundel County, a suburb of Baltimore with 72,891 residents at the 2020 census across 18.0 square miles. Its name traces to 1812, when district attorney Elias Glenn established a country estate south of Baltimore that he called Glennsburne; through his descendants it became Glennsbourne Farm and then Glenburnie, and postmaster Louis J. DeAlba split it into two words in 1930. In 1854 Elias Glenn's grandson William Wilkins Glenn folded the Curtis Creek Mining, Furnace and Manufacturing Company into the family property, and the business flourished through the 19th century. Glenburnie became an official state subdivision in 1888, and the Glenn family hired George T. Melvin and Henry S. Mancha to lay out and promote the town. First Avenue Elementary was built in 1899, and the oldest area church, St. Alban's Episcopal, went up in 1904 with many bricks dating back to Marley Chapel, an early Maryland parish from the 1730s. Crain Highway opened in 1927 and Ritchie Highway, MD 2, followed in 1939, carrying nearly all Baltimore-area traffic bound for Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge until Interstate 97 opened as a bypass in the 1980s. The Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad ran through Glen Burnie until passenger service ended in February 1950, and North Glen Burnie is now served by the Cromwell/Glen Burnie light rail station. The defining event for the housing stock came in 1947, when the Byrne Organization set up a prefabrication shop on a 300-acre site in Harundale and produced the parts for all 1,200 homes at once, on welded steel frames with outside walls of brick, shingle, or aluminum siding over redwood, set on concrete slabs and selling for $6,900. It was one of the largest prefabricated developments in America and marked the start of the postwar suburbanization of previously rural Anne Arundel County. Harundale Mall, reportedly the first enclosed shopping mall east of the Mississippi, opened in 1958 and was developed by James W. Rouse, the same developer who later built Columbia.

Roof or siding work in Glen Burnie? Call (667) 200-6656 or book a free inspection.