Built 1960 to 1999
1,570 of the 2,025 homes in five-plus buildings: 673 from 1960 to 1979 and 897 from 1980 to 1999.
EPDM Roofs in Herndon, VA: Which Buildings Come Up
A rubber membrane is a flat-roof answer, so it only matters on a building with a flat or very low roof. The records we could open do not say which Herndon roofs those are. They do say how many homes sit in apartment-size buildings, who rents them and when they went up.
Start here
Is EPDM even the question for your Herndon building?
Two questions, answered in order. Outcomes say what may be discussed, not what to buy.
Is the roof you are asking about pitched, or flat to very low?
PitchedShingle and metal are the materials to ask about. Our Herndon page covers the Town and county paperwork.
Flat or very lowA single-ply membrane such as EPDM, TPO or PVC may be on the table. Go to the next question.
Do you own the whole roof, or share it with other households?
I own it aloneCheck the Town or county office first, then compare membranes on our flat roof page.
SharedA board, owner or manager decides, and the written scope has to reach them. The table below shows how common that is in Herndon.
Tenure by building size
Who rents under the bigger Herndon buildings?
Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates, tables B25032 and B25127, Town of Herndon, 7,796 occupied homes. Small cells carry wide margins of error, so read the rows as scale, not precision. The Census counts homes, not roofs.
| Homes in the building | Owner-occupied | Renter-occupied |
|---|---|---|
| 5 to 9 | 89 | 263 |
| 10 to 19 | 273 | 605 |
| 20 to 49 | 126 | 431 |
| 50 or more | 68 | 170 |
| All five or more | 556 | 1,469 |
Added up, 2,025 occupied Herndon homes are in buildings of five or more, and 1,469 of them (about 73 percent) are rented. Our reading: for most of these buildings, the person who chooses a roof covering is a landlord, an owner's representative or a condo board, not the household underneath. Compare the single-family side, where 3,075 of the 4,841 owner households live in detached houses.
When they were built
Which decades produced Herndon's apartment-size buildings?
Built 2000 or later
442 homes, and only 13 in buildings from before 1960. Newer buildings are a minority of the multi-unit stock.
The table gives the age of the building, not of its roof, so it cannot say when any membrane went down. A building from the 1980s may have been re-covered more than once, or not at all. The record to ask for is the roof's own history from the owner or manager.
What the offices leave open
What do the Town's pages say about a membrane roof on a big building?
Carried from our earlier read of the Town's one-page Re-Roof sheet (the Town site blocked our reopening today): it speaks of a commercial or residential repair application, puts zoning approval first inside the Historic District, and names no roofing material. Whether a flat apartment roof follows that path is a question we put to Town Building Inspections, 703-435-6850, not a conclusion. The Town's permit page, as our Herndon page reports, lists Re-Roof under residential work types.
Town Code and planning text on rooftop equipment screening stayed unopened, so we state no rule about it here. For a building with units on the roof, ask the Town before assuming either way.
Before a membrane is named
What should a Herndon board or owner write into the scope?
- The standard on the data sheetThe 2021 International Building Code table for single-ply roofing lists EPDM under ASTM D4637. Ask for the number on paper.
- The edge metalThe same code text says metal edge systems on single-ply roofs under 2:12 are tested to ANSI/SPRI ES-1. Ask if the edge is in the quote.
- Whose approvalWho signs: the owner, the board, the Town or the county? Get the answer before pricing.
- The roof's own recordAsk for the last roof report, any leak log and what covers the roof now.
Background on membranes: flat roof, roofing materials and single-ply roofing across Northern Virginia.
Questions
What Herndon owners ask before choosing a flat-roof membrane
How many Herndon homes are in buildings of five or more?
The 2024 5-year Census estimate counts 2,025 occupied homes, 556 owner-occupied and 1,469 rented, with wide margins on the small rows.
Will Census figures show whether a Herndon apartment building is flat-roofed?
No. It counts homes by building size and age. Roof shape is not a Census question.
Who picks the roof on a rented apartment building?
The owner or the manager acting for the owner. A tenant can report a leak but is not the party who chooses a covering.
Do the Town's pages name EPDM?
None that we read did. Our earlier read of the Re-Roof sheet found no roofing material named. Ask Building Inspections about your scope.
Is a 1980s building likely to have its original roof?
The Census gives building age, not roof age. Ask the owner or manager for the roof record.
What should I ask a roofer about an EPDM quote?
Ask which ASTM standard the membrane meets, how seams are joined and checked, and whether the edge metal is included.
Can a condo board and the Town both have a say?
They can. A board follows its own documents, and the Town or county handles permits. Ask both in writing.
Nearby pages: EPDM roofs in Reston, EPDM roofs in Sterling and EPDM roofs in Chantilly. For the Town-or-county test, see roofers in Herndon.
Sources used
Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year tables B25032 and B25127 via Census Reporter, checked October 14, 2026. Town of Herndon permit pages were read earlier (October 8 and 11, 2026) and could not be reopened on October 14.
Talk through the next step
Tell us what kind of building it is
Give us the address, how many homes share the roof and who holds the decision. A short phone call sorts out whether a rubber membrane is even the question.
Book a free 15-minute phone consultation
(703) 712-1506
9220 Topaz St, Fairfax, VA 22031
Mon to Fri 7 AM to 8:30 PM, Sat 7 AM to 8 PM, closed Sunday