Cobb County · about half an hour from the office
Roofing in Acworth, Georgia
Acworth is about half an hour southwest and it took four-inch hail in 1998. It is also where we have the same conversation about Lake Allatoona over and over, so here is the answer.
The facts
- County
- Cobb County
- Residential ZIPs
- 30101 · 30102
- From the office
- 22 miles, about 32 minutes free-flow
- How you get here
- I-75 Exit 277 (GA-92) and Exit 278 (Glade Road), plus US-41. From our office the run is I-575 south to GA-92 west
Who issues the permit
City of Acworth Building Services, under Development. Water is the Cobb County Water System — the federal drinking-water inventory lists no city-named system for Acworth at all.
The housing stock
13.5% of Acworth's housing predates 1980 and the median year built is 2000, against Cobb County's 27.0% and a county median of 1990.
What the storm record says
4.00-inch hail fell on Acworth on 7 May 1998, the same day and the same system that put softball-size stones across southern Cherokee and 4.00 inches on Cumming. Cobb County over thirty years records 4.30 hail days a year, 2.77 of them at an inch or more, 20 days at 1.75 inches or more, and a 4.00-inch maximum.
What we run into in Acworth
01
The lake does not change your weather, and we are not going to tell you it does
Lake Allatoona is a Corps of Engineers reservoir on the Etowah River, created in 1949 with the completion of Allatoona Dam — about 12,000 acres and more than 270 miles of shoreline at full pool, reaching Cobb County here and nowhere else in Cobb. You will be told, probably by somebody selling you a roof, that the open water drives wind across this side of town. We went looking for that. There is no documented wind-fetch, lake-breeze or storm-intensification effect for Allatoona in National Weather Service, National Centers for Environmental Information or Corps of Engineers sources, and in thirty years of storm narratives not one attributes storm behavior to the lake. At 12,000 acres it is nowhere near large enough for the physics people borrow from the Great Lakes. It is a beautiful lake and it is not a hazard argument.
02
May 1998 put four inches of hail on this town
The 7 May 1998 event is the largest hail day in this market's thirty-year record and Acworth is one of the places it is logged at the full 4.00 inches, alongside southern Cherokee and Cumming. Cobb County's longer-run numbers are the highest of the eight counties here — 4.30 hail days a year, 2.77 at an inch or more, twenty days at 1.75 inches or more — with the honest caveat attached: Cobb has 787,538 people and produces more reports per storm than a rural county does, so part of that lead is observers rather than weather. Set against a median year built of 2000 and only 13.5% of the stock predating 1980, most Acworth roofs have a 1998-class event ahead of them rather than behind them.
03
Acworth is a Cobb city, whatever the ZIP says
One of Acworth's two ZIPs, 30102, is Cherokee-primary, and that produces a persistent belief that the city spans two counties. The city's own guidance is that residents inside the city limits are in Cobb County only. A ZIP code is not a city limit, and here the distinction decides who issues your permit: Acworth's own Building Services under Development, not Cherokee County's Development Service Center. Water is Cobb County's — the federal drinking-water inventory has no city-named system for Acworth. On the newer end of town, Governors Towne Club was established in the early 2000s with getting on for 300 custom estate homes around a Curtis Strange course.
Your project manager here
Andy Pruitt, project manager, lives in Acworth and carries this town. His and her colleagues are on the team page.
More about Acworth
Questions about Acworth
Does the lake make the wind worse on this side of town?
Not as far as anyone has documented. We looked through the Weather Service, the storm-event record and the Corps of Engineers and found no wind-fetch or microclimate effect for Allatoona, and no storm narrative in thirty years attributes anything to it. Anyone using the lake to sell you a roof is decorating.Am I in Cobb or Cherokee?
Inside the Acworth city limits, Cobb — the city says so itself. The 30102 ZIP being Cherokee-primary is what confuses people. It matters because your permit comes from Acworth Building Services rather than from the county.How bad does hail get here?
Four inches, on 7 May 1998, in this town. That is the outlier. The routine figure for Cobb is 4.30 hail days a year with 2.77 of them at an inch or more — and we would rather you read that as "often enough to be worth an inspection" than as a reason to panic.
Free inspection
Request an inspection window
Three steps — four if there has been a storm. About ninety seconds.
Get on the roof and know for sure.
Forty-five minutes, dated photographs, a written answer, and no obligation of any kind.