- SPECIALS
Case Study
A Signature Roofing Project by Rapid Roofing
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Neighborhood:
Smithtown, NY · Suffolk County
Roof Type:
Color:
Aged Cedar
Scope
Full roof replacement + exterior upgrade
Architecture
Curved dormers, multi-plane roofline
Valleys
Open copper
The hard part
A custom install method for curved dormers
Also completed
Cedar siding repair · Detached shed re-roofed in matching Brava · Mahogany deck railings
The homeowner came to us with one requirement that shaped every decision after it: he plans to be in this house for decades, and he did not want to think about the roof again while he lives there.
He loved natural cedar – the texture, the way it silvers, the way it belongs on a house like this one. What he did not love was the maintenance calendar and the replacement clock that come with it. So the brief was easy to say and hard to deliver.
The look of cedar. Without the short lifespan of cedar.
We did not open with a product. We started with the finished house and worked backwards from it.
Brava gave the cedar profile our client wanted with a composite lifespan he will not have to plan around. From the driveway it reads as cedar.
Getting the specification right took several weeks. Multiple contractors were bidding. The homeowner was doing his homework, as anyone should on a project this size.
This house has curved dormers. Brava synthetic shake is a rigid product – it is not made to bend around a radius, and there is no manufacturer’s instruction sheet for doing it.
The usual solution is to change the design: flatten the dormer, switch material on that section, or talk the homeowner out of the detail entirely.
So our crew developed a custom installation method for running Brava across a curved dormer – one that lets the shake courses follow the radius cleanly, holds the water line, and does not read as a workaround when you look up at it.
It is rare work. It is also the first thing you see from the driveway, every single day.
No other roofing company has accomplished this installation before. The craftsmen at Rapid Roofing invented the method, creating a way to run rigid synthetic shake across the curved dormers without changing the home’s original design.
A design decision, not just drainage. Copper goes on bright, then patinas down through bronze into a deep green-brown over the years.
The siding was repaired and matched so the walls and the new roof read as one surface. A new roof over tired siding just makes the siding louder.
The pool house was re-roofed in matching Brava shake and Aged Cedar. The detached shed received the same material, creating a consistent finish across the property.
Added as part of the wider exterior upgrade. It is the piece that took this from a roof replacement to a finished house.
On a project of this size, surprises are the enemy. So we spend the time before the first piece of material goes on.
Before installation started, our VP Mike Meinardus and Operations Manager Ryan walked the whole project with the homeowner – Colors, flashing spec, install method per roof section, sequence, and exactly what finished would look like.
The homeowner had a direct line to Ryan and to the project lead for the entire install. Every upcoming phase was talked through before it started. Nobody had to ask what was happening tomorrow.
He added work as the project went on, the way homeowners do once they can see it coming together. The crew absorbed it – scheduled it, priced it, explained it, built it – without pushing the finish date.
“By the time the first shake went on, everyone already knew the game plan.”
Roofing isn’t just maintenance, it’s legacy protection.
Talk to a Legacy Roofing Specialist
Talk to a Legacy Roofing Specialist
Rapid Roofing is a family-owned company that has been on Long Island roofs for more than three decades. A project like this one does not come down to a product catalog. It comes down to whether the people on the roof care about the two inches where the copper meets the shake.
One plan, one schedule, one team you can reach. You always know what is happening this week and what is happening next.
Scope, specification and price are on the table before we start. Changes get explained and agreed, not slipped into an invoice.
This is where your family lives, not a job number. Your property, your landscaping and your time get treated that way.
Curved dormers in synthetic shake had no playbook. We wrote one rather than talk the homeowner out of his own house.
Economical, affordable payments
Exceptional, world-class installation
Smithtown roofs take a specific kind of beating: salt in the air off the Sound, nor’easters coming in sideways, heavy tree cover dropping debris and shade onto north-facing slopes, and a freeze-thaw cycle that finds every seam. Add the older colonial and shingle-style homes across Smithtown, St. James, Nissequogue and Head of the Harbor, and you get a lot of roofs where the architecture is worth protecting properly.
That combination – coastal exposure plus architecture worth keeping – is exactly where synthetic shake earns its price. Rapid Roofing works across Nassau and Suffolk from five Long Island offices.
Up close, you can tell. From the street, from the driveway, from anywhere a person actually looks at your roof – no. Brava shakes are molded from real cedar, so the grain and thickness vary shake to shake instead of repeating like a printed pattern, and the color runs through the shake rather than sitting on top of it. If what draws you to cedar is the way it looks on a Long Island house, everything a cedar roof gets right is the same list – this version just keeps it for fifty years.
Brava carries a 50-year limited warranty. Natural cedar typically lasts 30 years – and that is before Long Island weather has had its say. For a homeowner who plans to stay put, that gap is the whole argument. We put the rest of the case side by side in our breakdown of synthetic cedar shake: the Class 4 impact rating, the Class A fire rating, the color options, and what the maintenance difference actually costs over a few decades.
Not out of the box – the product is rigid and there is no standard method for a curved surface. It can be done, but it takes a crew willing to develop the detail. We built a custom installation method for the curved dormers on this Smithtown project rather than change the design.
Two reasons. Water moves off an open valley faster and with less to catch on, and copper is the finish that ages into the house instead of away from it. It costs more up front. On a roof you intend to keep for fifty years, it is the cheaper decision.
Salt air, wind off the Sound and the freeze-thaw cycle are what shorten a cedar roof here. Natural cedar absorbs moisture, and absorbed moisture is what causes the curling and cupping you can spot from the ground on tired roofs – our cedar shake guide covers what natural cedar needs to survive a Long Island climate, including the maintenance pass it wants every two to four years. Synthetic shake does not absorb water, so it does not curl, split, hold moss or feed insects. That is why so many of our Suffolk and Nassau projects end up specified this way.
Tell us what you want the house to look like when it is finished. We will work backwards from there — the way we did in Smithtown.
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