J&M Roofing
Commercial & Residential Roofing Experts
Four Squares, Done Right — Tamko Rustic Black Reroof in Lake City, FL
July 2026 | Lake City, FL (Columbia County) | Completed by: Hunter Lipthrott, J&M Roofing
Not every roofing job is a 40-square residential replacement. Angel’s Lake City facility needed a small section of shingle roofing replaced — four squares at a 4/12 pitch — and the scope was exactly as straightforward as that sounds. What wasn’t straightforward was finding a contractor willing to show up for a four-square job with the same level of attention they’d bring to a full replacement. Hunter Lipthrott from J&M Roofing’s St. Augustine roofing team did exactly that, completing the Tamko Rustic Black reroof on July 2, 2026, ten days after the initial office visit.
Project Details at a Glance
Customer: Angel, Lake City
Install Date: July 2, 2026
Product: Tamko Rustic Black
Squares: 4
Pitch: 4/12
Scope: Partial shingle reroof — light commercial
Location: Lake City, FL (Columbia County)
Specialist: Hunter Lipthrott, St. Augustine Branch
In Office: June 22, 2026
Permit: Columbia County
Why Small Jobs Deserve the Same Standard as Large Ones
There’s a version of the roofing industry where a four-square job doesn’t get a call back. The margins on small jobs don’t have the same appeal as a 35-square residential replacement, and some contractors make that math visible in how they prioritize their schedule — or whether they show up at all. That reality is well understood by facility managers and small business owners who’ve watched roofing contractors inspect a job, give a quote, and then go quiet when the scope doesn’t pencil out the way they’d hoped.
J&M Roofing’s approach doesn’t work that way. The same installation standards, material quality, and crew attention that go into a large residential replacement apply to a four-square light commercial job. The reason is practical: a four-square leak at a working facility causes real operational disruption, and a four-square section done incorrectly creates the same long-term problems as any other roofing failure — it just takes less material to create them. Small scope doesn’t mean low stakes. It means the problem is contained, and the best time to address it correctly is before it isn’t.
Lake City sits at the crossroads of I-75 and I-10 in Columbia County — a working town built on agriculture, logistics, and light industry. The facility in these photos reflects that character: a single-story concrete masonry block building with a utilitarian interior, barred windows, working yard, and the kind of institutional infrastructure — pipes at the base, security lighting, overhead utilities — that’s standard at active North Florida industrial operations. It’s not a building that calls for architectural shingle aesthetics. It’s a building that needs its roof to work, and to keep working.
Tamko Rustic Black — Function-First for a Working Facility
Rustic Black on Concrete Block — A Practical Match
The building is tan-painted CMU block with blue-framed barred windows — a no-frills exterior built for durability and security, not curb appeal. Tamko Rustic Black is a natural fit: a deep near-black shingle that reads cleanly against the neutral tan block without introducing a color decision that doesn’t belong in an industrial context. The low-slope roofline across the top of the concrete block walls is visible from the approach, and the new dark Rustic Black field reads as settled and complete — finished, not just patched.
Tamko is a major independent shingle manufacturer, and their architectural laminate construction delivers the same two-layer bonded profile found in the large-brand products used on residential replacements. For a commercial application, that construction matters: better wind resistance than a 3-tab at the same square footage, better dimensional stability through North Florida’s summer heat cycles, and a longer service life than the economy-grade alternatives that show up on commercial jobs when a bidder is trying to make a small scope work at thin margins. Rustic Black was the straightforward, right-product choice for this roof.
Four Squares at 4/12 — Small Footprint, Standard Execution
Four squares is roughly 400 square feet of roofing surface — a genuinely small scope. At 4/12, the pitch is moderate and walkable, with enough slope to shed the Florida rain load reliably without complicating installation. The scope here was clean: tear off the existing shingles over the affected section, inspect and address the deck, install new underlayment, and lay the Tamko Rustic Black field. No unusual geometry, no complex penetrations that would expand the scope. Four squares, done correctly, done once.
That simplicity is worth naming directly: partial reroofs on commercial buildings sometimes get patched rather than properly replaced, because patching is faster and cheaper on a small section. Patches solve the immediate symptom and push the actual problem forward. A proper tear-off and reroof — even at four squares — resets the section from the deck up, which means the work done in July 2026 won’t be generating a callback in eighteen months.
Hunter Lipthrott — St. Augustine Branch
Hunter Lipthrott has more than eight years of residential and commercial roofing experience with J&M Roofing’s St. Augustine branch, holding credentials across GAF, CertainTeed, IKO, and NRCA Pro certifications. The scope on Angel’s Lake City job was well within Hunter’s range — what it required was a specialist willing to give a four-square light commercial job the same scheduling priority and on-site attention as a larger residential project on his calendar. A full bio update is forthcoming; contact us directly if you’d like to work with Hunter on your project.
The Result
The photos were taken in the evening, roughly ten days after the July 2 installation. The building in both images is the same: tan CMU block, blue-framed barred windows, working concrete yard. What’s changed is the roofline — the new Tamko Rustic Black shingles sit cleanly across the low-slope surface above the block walls, dark and uniform against the fading sky. The section is complete. There’s no visible patchwork, no transition zone between old and new material — just the Rustic Black field across the full four-square area, properly installed and properly integrated at the edges.
Angel’s facility has a working roof again. The section that needed replacement was replaced — from the deck up, to standard, without shortcuts taken on scope because the job was small. That’s the only version of this job worth doing.
Project Specifications Summary
Product: Tamko Rustic Black
Squares: 4
Pitch: 4/12
Scope: Partial reroof — light commercial
Construction: Concrete masonry block (CMU)
Location: Lake City, FL (Columbia County)
Specialist: Hunter Lipthrott, St. Augustine Branch
In Office: June 22, 2026
Install Date: July 2, 2026 (10 days)
Permit: Columbia County
Contractor: J&M Roofing | FL License #CCC1331951
J&M Roofing Serves Lake City and Columbia County
J&M Roofing’s St. Augustine branch serves Lake City and all of Columbia County, along with Alachua, Flagler, Volusia, Duval, and St. Johns counties. Whether the job is four squares or forty, we show up with the same crew standards and material quality. Call our St. Augustine office at (904) 320-1968, Monday through Friday.
Free estimates and inspections available throughout Columbia County and North Central Florida.