Guides · Camden Roofing Blog
The honest answer is a range, not a number — and where your roof lands in its range is decided less by the material than by South Jersey weather and how the roof was installed. Here are the typical published ranges, and the factors that move them.
| Material | Typical published life | Usually ends because of |
|---|---|---|
| 3-tab asphalt shingle | ~15–20 years | Granule loss, brittleness |
| Architectural shingle | ~25–30 years | Ageing, flashing failures first |
| EPDM (flat) | ~25–30 years | Seams and flashing, not the sheet |
| TPO (flat) | ~20–30 years | Formulation and install quality vary widely |
| Modified bitumen (flat) | ~15–25 years | Laps and ponding areas |
Treat these as manufacturer-and-industry ranges, not promises. Notice the pattern in the third column: most roofs do not wear out in the middle — they fail at seams, flashing, and details first.
Not from the calendar, and not from the street. An on-roof inspection — seams, flashing, deck — with photos tells you which end of the range your roof is living at. Ours is free, and if the answer is 'five good years left,' that is what the report says.
Yes — and Camden has both. Pitched shingle roofs here mostly age from the top down: sun, granule loss, and flashing cycling through freeze-thaw winters. Flat roofs age from the edges in: seams, parapet flashing, and drains, with ponding deciding the pace. That is why flat roofs reward a maintenance habit pitched roofs forgive — a seam and drain check every few years catches the cheap failures before they become deck rot. Either way, the roof's real remaining life is read on the roof, not from a chart — including this one.
The inspection is free, and it comes with photos and a number in writing. Roofing Camden is all we do — this city and its inner-ring towns.
Call Camden Roofing Pros — (856) 269-8054