Church and House of Worship Roofing Contractor

Most churches have three roofs. A steep slate or shingle roof covers the sanctuary, copper or metal covers the steeple or dome, and a flat membrane roof covers the fellowship hall and classrooms. Each one fails in its own way, and most roofing companies are set up to handle only one of them.

GSM Roofing has worked on all three since 1946. We are a family-owned company in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, now in our third generation, and we serve congregations across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Our crews have restored slate roofs on National Register churches, handcrafted copper tiles for a bell tower, set a new spire on a steeple built in 1801, and put membrane roofs on the halls where the potluck happens. We work with:

Pastors, trustees, and property committees
Diocesan and synod facilities staff
Architects and preservation consultants
General contractors restoring historic sanctuaries
Insurance adjusters after hail and wind storms

Aerial view of the new slate roof and stone bell tower at Atonement Lutheran Church in Wyomissing, PA, installed by GSM Roofing — Atonement Lutheran Church, Wyomissing, PA: 22,561 pieces of North Country Black slate after a 2014 hail storm.

The Three Roofs on Most Churches

Sanctuary roofs: slate, tile, and shingle

We repair sections of slate and we do full re-slates, in Vermont Gray, North Country Black, and whatever matches what you have. At Atonement Lutheran Church in Wyomissing, a hail storm led to 22,561 pieces of new North Country Black slate set with 315 pounds of copper nails, plus 120 squares of shingles on the surrounding buildings. We match clipped-corner patterns and historic designs, and we helped write the National Slate Association’s updated installation manual. Our slate roofing and historic restoration pages cover the materials in more depth.

Steeples, towers, and domes

This is where church roofing becomes sheet metal work, and ours is done in-house. We fabricate copper and lead-coated copper flat seam and standing seam roofing, 16-ounce copper ridge and hip caps, custom flashings, and copper snow guards. With our sister company GSM Industrial we have fabricated a complete aluminum spire. We have covered domes in ATAS standing seam metal and in handcrafted copper tiles, and we restore and reinstall the crosses, urns, and weather vanes that sit on top.

Fellowship halls, offices, and classrooms

The low-slope roofs on the rest of the campus get the same TPO, EPDM, and PVC membrane systems and roof coatings we install on hospitals and schools. The difference on a church campus is the calendar. We schedule around Sunday services, weddings, funerals, and vacation Bible school, and we keep staging away from the doors people use.

Completed Vermont Gray slate repairs with new copper snow guards at St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church in Tyrone, PA

Historic Slate Restoration at St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church, Tyrone, PA

Built in 1886 and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1993, St. Matthew’s Vermont Gray slate roof had been patched with silicone by a prior contractor and was missing head lap in places. We removed and reset the affected courses, repaired 100 square feet of scattered slate, replaced 30 copper snow guards that failed over the winter, and installed 75 feet of custom 16-ounce copper ridge cap. Copper at the ridge slows moss and lichen on the slate below it. The work was completed in April 2026, and our estimator returns every April to walk the roof and give the parish a condition report and a maintenance budget for the year ahead.

View the St. Matthew Project

Handcrafted copper tile dome on the bell tower of First Lutheran Church in Carlisle, PA

A Copper Bell Tower Dome at First Lutheran Church, Carlisle, PA

A leak running into the masonry around the tower turned out to be a hail-damaged copper dome 130 feet above downtown Carlisle. Our fabricators handcrafted 650 copper tiles on a stainless steel base, soldered each one for a half-inch standoff that gives the dome its shadow lines, and restored the original iron cross with a gold epoxy finish. The job took two months behind scaffolding and netting, and the church’s insurer covered most of the cost.

“We have a number of different roof types at the church, from shingle, copper, rubber and slate, and GSM has worked on all of them. Their expertise is diverse and the work they do is beautiful.” Tate Dillard, Administrator, First Lutheran Church

View the First Lutheran Project

New spire clad in lead-coated copper being lifted onto the 1801 steeple at St. Stephen Reformed Church in New Holland, PA

A New Spire for a 214-Year-Old Steeple at St. Stephen Reformed Church, New Holland, PA

The lantern still had the builder’s signature inside it, dated 1801, and it was standing on two of its six support beams. Working with Paul Risk Construction, GSM Industrial fabricated a new aluminum spire and our roofing crew clad it in 16-ounce lead-coated copper standing seam on the ground before it was lifted into place. We finished the lantern base in lead-coated copper flat seam and set four custom urns and figurines. The Beacon on the Hill was relit on June 16, 2016, after a decade in the dark.

View the St. Stephen Project

More of our church work: Maytown Reformed United Church of Christ, an 1805 church re-slated in North Country Black after hail, with its trumpet-playing angel weather vane restored and returned to the roof. St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church of Valley Forge, where we took over from another contractor and finished two standing seam metal domes before the iconographers landed from Greece. Atonement Lutheran Church in Wyomissing, a slate and shingle hail restoration that the church has kept on semi-annual maintenance ever since.

Budgeting for a Church Roof

Church boards plan in years, not weeks, so we give options instead of one number. At St. Matthew, the parish chose to replace failed snow guards while our crew was already on the roof rather than on a return trip, which would have cost roughly two and a half times more. When the whole job is too much for one year, we phase it: the steeple this year, the sanctuary next. For congregations that want someone watching the roof between projects, the Exceptional Roof Protection Plan schedules inspections and minor repairs so small problems stay small.

For 14 years our Great Roof Giveaway has donated roofing to nonprofits in the communities we serve, and churches are often the winners. Latta Memorial Presbyterian Church received $13,970 in repairs in 2025 at no cost. Bethel AME Church’s Sparkman Cultural Center in Lancaster received a new roof. In 2026 the Gooding Group Foundation funded repairs at Susquehanna Church of Christ in Marietta.

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Emergency Roof Repair for Churches

A leak over the altar does not wait for Monday. We answer the phone 24 hours a day, every day, at 800-532-ROOF, and our emergency repair form is always open. Tell us what you see and where, and we will get a crew to you and make the roof watertight before we talk about the permanent fix.

Call us at 800-532-ROOF

How long does a slate roof on a church last?

A natural slate roof that was installed correctly and is maintained can last 100 years or more, and some last 150. The slate usually outlives everything around it. The copper flashings, valleys, fasteners, and snow guards wear out first, and those are what most church slate roofs actually need replaced. When we inspect a slate roof we are looking at the metal and the fasteners as closely as the slate.

Can you repair part of our slate roof, or do we need to replace all of it?

Most church slate roofs can be repaired. Scattered slate replacement, resetting courses that were installed with too little head lap, and new copper flashings and snow guards solve most problems. Full replacement makes sense when the slate itself is soft and delaminating, or when the deck under it is failing, as it was at Maytown Reformed Church, where the original open lath had to be covered with new plywood before the new slate went on. We will tell you which situation you have and price both options if both are reasonable.

Do you work with our insurance company after storm damage?

Yes. Three of the church projects on this page were insurance claims. We document the damage with photos and a drone survey, meet the adjuster on the roof, scope the repair to match the policy, and handle the paperwork so the church does not have to. At Maytown the insurer brought us in because they wanted a local slate specialist. After the First Lutheran bell tower, the same insurance company awarded GSM three more projects.

Can we keep holding services while the work is going on?

Yes. We schedule around worship, weddings, funerals, and school hours, and we stage equipment away from entrances. On tower and steeple work we scaffold and net the work area so nothing falls near the building, which is how the First Lutheran dome was done in the middle of downtown Carlisle. Most church work happens on weekdays, and we plan the noisy parts with your office.

Do you handle steeples, domes, crosses, and weather vanes?

Yes, and the metalwork is done in our own shop. We have clad a new aluminum spire in lead-coated copper before it was lifted onto a 214-year-old steeple, handcrafted 650 copper tiles for a bell tower dome, covered twin domes in standing seam metal, restored an iron cross with a gold finish, and reinstalled a trumpet-playing angel weather vane that had been off a church for years.

What about the flat roof on our fellowship hall or education wing?

We do those too, with the same TPO, EPDM, and PVC membrane systems and roof coatings we install on hospitals and schools. Low-slope church roofs tend to get the least attention and produce the most leaks. If the membrane is still sound, a coating can add years for a fraction of replacement cost. If you want someone watching it, the Exceptional Roof Protection Plan covers scheduled inspections and minor repairs.

How do we get started?

Call 800-532-ROOF or send us a note. We will visit, walk the roof, photograph what we find, and give your committee written options with the reasoning behind each one.