Who pays for the engineer, and how long does it take?

The engineer's review is a line on the estimate, quoted before it is ordered, and the homeowner decides whether to go ahead with the heavier product or take the lighter one. Turnaround is for the engineer to set, and VResh passes on what it is told when the estimate is written.

My house is from 1972 with its original three-tab. Does a laminated shingle need an engineer?

A move within asphalt is a small change in weight, and on its own it does not send a roof to an engineer. What sends a 1972 roof to one is a move to tile or slate, equipment going onto the roof, or a rafter that can be seen sagging at the estimate visit. A second layer is a tear-off matter: it comes off, and the deck inspection that follows is where anything the layers were hiding shows.

Snow slides off my roof onto the front steps every winter. Can a new roof fix that?

It can be detailed for it. Snow guards above the entry hold the snow in place so it melts in place, and a cover over the steps catches what does slide; both are easier to add during the reroof than after it. Neither changes the design load the framing was sized for; they change where the snow goes.

Is Sandy's snow load the same as up the mountain?

No. 42 and 30 are the city's address numbers for addresses within the city. The unincorporated communities east along the highway fall under Clackamas County, which sets snow loads by location, and the numbers climb with elevation. VResh reads the address criteria on the estimate: city or county.

Homes Built Before 1978 in Every Portland Neighborhood

About 61% of Portland's homes were built before 1978, the year lead based paint was banned. But that citywide number hides a huge range. This page breaks it down for 89 neighborhoods, from the streetcar era blocks of Laurelhurst and Alameda to the newest subdivisions in the West Hills, using U.S. Census data mapped to the City of Portland's official neighborhood boundaries.

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    25
    neighborhoods where three quarters or more of homes were built before 1978
  
    Laurelhurst
    has the oldest housing in the city at 95% built before 1978
  
    79%
    of homes in Alameda date from before 1940, the highest share in Portland
  
    Northwest Heights
    has the newest housing at 5% built before 1978

Table: every neighborhood, ranked

Sort any column by clicking its heading, or filter by area of the city. The share built before 1970 is a floor that needs no estimating, and the share built before 1940 shows where lead paint and original wood siding are most likely.

Laurelhurst

Southeast

1,980

94.6%

93.3%

78.2%

Alameda

Northeast

2,433

89.0%

87.1%

78.6%

Rose City Park

Central Northeast

4,601

87.1%

84.8%

61.2%

Roseway

Central Northeast

3,066

86.7%

83.5%

40.3%

Parkrose Heights

East Portland

2,449

86.4%

76.1%

4.3%

Concordia

Northeast

4,394

86.0%

81.0%

47.7%

Beaumont-Wilshire

Central Northeast

2,570

85.8%

80.5%

53.9%

Irvington

Northeast

3,884

82.7%

77.3%

66.0%

Sabin

Northeast

2,189

82.5%

81.4%

65.5%

Grant Park

Central Northeast

2,032

82.4%

79.1%

68.0%

South Burlingame

Southwest

887

81.5%

74.5%

27.3%

Eastmoreland

Southeast

2,666

79.8%

70.2%

39.6%

University Park

North Portland

1,999

79.7%

75.0%

36.5%

Woodstock

Southeast

3,870

78.8%

73.2%

32.7%

Mt. Scott-Arleta

Southeast

3,482

78.5%

71.1%

42.5%

Ardenwald-Johnson Creek

Southeast

2,708

78.4%

66.3%

28.0%

Montavilla

Southeast

7,354

78.1%

68.8%

28.1%

Arbor Lodge

North Portland

3,315

77.8%

74.7%

51.3%

Vernon

Northeast

1,181

77.8%

74.4%

52.1%

Parkrose

East Portland

2,404

77.3%

68.3%

15.4%

Mt. Tabor

Southeast

5,117

77.1%

71.5%

41.4%

Piedmont

North Portland

3,563

76.8%

68.9%

47.0%

Madison South

Central Northeast

3,731

75.8%

71.2%

20.1%

Sumner

Central Northeast

914

75.1%

71.4%

26.7%

Woodlawn

Northeast

2,553

75.1%

71.1%

42.2%

South Tabor

Southeast

3,159

74.5%

66.8%

21.8%

Richmond

Southeast

6,390

74.4%

70.9%

49.5%

North Tabor

Southeast

2,778

74.1%

68.8%

28.9%

Bridlemile

Southwest

2,513

73.7%

54.5%

4.8%

Hosford-Abernethy

Southeast

4,504

73.5%

70.6%

56.7%

Foster-Powell

Southeast

3,582

71.9%

62.1%

29.4%

Sunnyside

Southeast

3,899

71.3%

65.3%

52.4%

Hillsdale

Southwest

3,642

71.1%

60.4%

11.8%

Homestead

Southwest

1,209

70.1%

63.1%

25.0%

Sullivan's Gulch

Northeast

1,963

69.3%

59.3%

42.6%

Creston-Kenilworth

Southeast

4,272

69.1%

55.1%

30.2%

Markham

Southwest

815

68.7%

56.4%

17.2%

Humboldt

Northeast

2,419

68.6%

66.5%

49.9%

Hollywood

Central Northeast

1,290

67.9%

65.2%

35.9%

Overlook

North Portland

3,899

67.7%

64.9%

43.7%

Brooklyn

Southeast

3,527

67.5%

62.5%

42.4%

Reed

Southeast

1,738

67.2%

43.3%

19.0%

Argay Terrace

East Portland

2,658

67.0%

43.3%

0.7%

Hillside

Northwest

750

66.2%

63.7%

39.6%

Kenton

North Portland

3,761

66.0%

60.1%

36.2%

King

Northeast

3,228

66.0%

63.7%

49.4%

Southwest Hills

Northwest

4,609

65.8%

57.3%

24.5%

Cully

Central Northeast

5,871

65.2%

56.7%

16.2%

Hayhurst

Southwest

2,617

64.9%

46.4%

6.4%

Sellwood-Moreland

Southeast

5,380

64.9%

57.0%

38.4%

Portsmouth

North Portland

4,186

64.5%

58.0%

24.3%

Arlington Heights

Northwest

1,205

64.1%

62.0%

37.1%

Brentwood-Darlington

Southeast

5,227

63.9%

56.2%

20.0%

Collins View

Southwest

472

62.6%

55.1%

18.3%

Centennial

East Portland

8,923

62.4%

44.9%

2.4%

Sylvan-Highlands

Northwest

1,161

62.1%

56.7%

25.2%

Glenfair

East Portland

1,216

60.4%

37.2%

2.0%

Maplewood

Southwest

1,351

60.1%

39.4%

10.5%

Northwest District

Northwest

12,569

59.8%

55.8%

38.5%

Buckman

Southeast

6,599

59.2%

53.0%

38.7%

Cathedral Park

North Portland

2,564

57.8%

50.4%

26.9%

Kerns

Southeast

5,099

56.7%

48.1%

35.2%

Linnton

Northwest

550

56.7%

54.1%

37.0%

Hazelwood

East Portland

10,635

56.5%

46.0%

3.5%

Multnomah

Southwest

4,475

56.2%

42.0%

12.7%

Mill Park

East Portland

3,891

55.9%

41.5%

3.6%

Lents

East Portland

8,614

54.9%

42.4%

16.8%

Ashcreek-Crestwood

Southwest

2,913

54.6%

36.6%

5.5%

Marshall Park

Southwest

580

54.4%

38.2%

5.3%

Powellhurst-Gilbert

East Portland

10,424

53.9%

41.8%

5.8%

St. Johns

North Portland

6,160

53.6%

46.8%

21.6%

Russell

East Portland

1,693

52.5%

47.7%

0.3%

Arnold Creek

Southwest

1,259

52.1%

33.8%

2.3%

Goose Hollow

Northwest

5,292

52.0%

43.1%

22.5%

Wilkes

East Portland

3,996

49.6%

33.5%

0.8%

Hayden Island

North Portland

880

48.0%

21.7%

5.1%

West Portland Park

Southwest

1,850

47.4%

15.0%

5.5%

Old Town

Northwest

2,200

44.0%

36.7%

27.5%

Forest Park

Northwest

1,657

40.3%

35.5%

15.4%

Boise

Northeast

3,010

38.4%

36.5%

29.9%

Lloyd

Northeast

2,442

37.9%

30.7%

17.5%

Portland Downtown

Northwest

9,849

37.3%

31.4%

19.5%

Far Southwest

Southwest

1,031

35.8%

14.1%

3.3%

Eliot

Northeast

3,709

31.6%

28.2%

21.8%

Pleasant Valley

East Portland

6,423

28.0%

17.0%

3.6%

South Portland

Southwest

6,301

22.4%

20.1%

12.8%

East Columbia

North Portland

328

21.2%

15.7%

2.1%

Pearl District

Northwest

8,294

8.6%

7.9%

6.2%

Northwest Heights

Northwest

2,312

5.2%

4.0%

0.2%

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five year estimates, table B25034, Year Structure Built, by census tract, retrieved September 2026 via Census Reporter; tract boundaries from the Census Bureau TIGERweb service; Neighborhood Boundaries from PortlandMaps Open Data, City of Portland. Tract counts were allocated to neighborhoods in proportion to overlapping land area. "Built before 1978" counts all homes built before 1970 plus eight tenths of homes built between 1970 and 1979. Housing unit figures are rounded estimates and carry survey margins of error, which are wider for small neighborhoods. Neighborhoods under 150 estimated units are omitted.

What the pattern shows

The oldest housing forms a band through inner Northeast and Southeast: Laurelhurst, Alameda, Irvington, Sabin, Grant Park, Rose City Park and Eastmoreland were largely built out before the Second World War, and in several of them two thirds or more of homes are from before 1940. These are the neighborhoods where original wood siding, single pane wood windows, knob and tube wiring and lead based paint are most likely to show up on the same house.

East Portland tells a different story. Parkrose Heights, Roseway, Madison South and Montavilla have high pre 1978 shares but very little from before 1940. This is postwar housing from the 1950s and 1960s, often with original hardboard or early composite siding that has reached the end of its service life, and 1960s aluminum windows. The lead paint rule still applies, and the moisture damage behind older siding is usually more advanced than owners expect.

At the other end, the Pearl District, South Portland, Northwest Heights and Pleasant Valley are mostly post 1990 construction where lead safe work practices are rarely triggered but where builder grade windows and early generation composite siding are now reaching replacement age.

What this means for a renovation

Any project that disturbs painted surfaces in a pre 1978 home falls under the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule, which covers siding replacement, window replacement, dry rot repair, exterior painting and most interior work. The contractor must hold EPA Lead Safe certification, set up containment, follow lead safe work practices, clean and verify the area, and give you written documentation. In Oregon the contractor also needs a Lead Based Paint Renovation license from the CCB. Ask for both before work starts.

Serving Portland Metro Area

VResh Construction provides window replacement, siding installation, roofing, dry rot repair and full exterior renovation services throughout the Portland metro area and Southwest Washington.

Portland Metro — Oregon

Portland, OR

Southwest Washington

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OUR FAQS
Questions about this data

Why does 1978 matter?
+

Lead based paint was banned for residential use in the United States in 1978. Under the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule, any contractor who disturbs painted surfaces in a home built before 1978 must hold EPA Lead Safe certification and follow containment, cleaning and documentation procedures. Oregon adds a state Lead Based Paint Renovation license requirement through the CCB.

How were neighborhood figures calculated when the Census does not report by neighborhood?
+

The Census Bureau reports Year Structure Built by census tract. Tract boundaries do not follow neighborhood boundaries, so each tract's housing counts were divided among the neighborhoods it overlaps in proportion to land area, using the City of Portland's official neighborhood boundary file. This is a standard method called areal interpolation. It is accurate for neighborhoods where housing is spread evenly and less precise where a tract mixes dense and empty land.

What about areas shared between two neighborhoods?
+

Portland has about 25 small areas that two neighborhood associations both claim, such as the strip between Alameda and Irvington. Those areas are counted in both neighborhoods' totals, because each association treats the area as its own. The map shows them as separate outlined pieces.

Why are some neighborhoods missing?
+

Neighborhoods with fewer than 150 estimated housing units, along with the unincorporated pockets of Multnomah County inside city limits, are left out because the estimates are too small to be reliable. Industrial and port areas fall into this group.

Does a home built before 1978 always contain lead paint?
+

No. The likelihood rises with age: roughly one in four homes built between 1960 and 1977, about seven in ten built between 1940 and 1959, and close to nine in ten built before 1940, according to HUD and EPA estimates. A lead paint test is the only way to know for certain.

Can I use this data?
+

Yes. It is derived from public Census Bureau and City of Portland data. You are welcome to cite it, embed the figures or link to this page, and a CSV download is provided under the table.

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