Roof repair & replacement in Passaic County, NJ

Older city homes and two-family houses

Many Passaic County roofs sit on attached homes, two-family houses and small apartment buildings rather than single houses. Across the county, 58% of homes are something other than a single-family detached house, and only 55% are lived in by their owners. That means many roof jobs are for landlords, and the work has to be planned around tenants: getting into the attic or top-floor unit, keeping hallways clear and protecting the porch or entry everyone uses. Even the roof itself is often shared: attached homes can run under one continuous roof line, with each owner responsible for their own section.

On a two-family house there is usually one roof but two households under it. We write one estimate for the whole roof and walk the owner through it, so it can be shared with tenants before work starts. On attached homes, we tie the new roof into the neighbour’s at the dividing line and seal that joint carefully, because that is where water gets in when only one side has been redone. We also look at everything a two-family roof carries: vent stacks from two kitchens and two bathrooms, old antenna and dish mounts, and sometimes two chimneys or flues. Each of those is a hole in the roof, and each one gets new flashing or a new boot when the roof is replaced.

Flat roofs on brick and mixed-use buildings

Paterson was planned as a manufacturing city. The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures was formed at the Great Falls in 1791, and the city grew around rows of brick mills that made cotton cloth, silk, locomotives and firearms. Brick buildings from that history, and the storefronts with apartments above them along the county’s main streets, are usually covered by flat or low-slope roofs. Many have been patched so often that the original roof is buried under layers of tar and coating.

On those roofs the leaks are rarely in the middle of the membrane. They start at the parapet walls, the coping on top of them, the flashing around rooftop units and hatches, and the drains or scuppers. We replace worn membranes with EPDM, TPO or torch-down, rebuild the flashing up and over the parapets, and clear and test the drains. The remnants of Hurricane Ida in September 2021 put Passaic County in a federal major disaster declaration, and a flat roof with a blocked drain cannot shed that kind of rain. Where a roof has been coated over and over, we cut test openings to see what is underneath before recommending a coating, an overlay or a full tear-off.

Snow, ice and trees in West Milford and Ringwood

North Passaic County is a different climate. According to the New Jersey Highlands Council, every acre of West Milford and Ringwood lies in the Highlands Preservation Area. New Jersey’s state climatologist puts average yearly snowfall in the state’s northern highland zone at 40 to 50 inches, against 10 to 15 inches in the far south, with winter temperatures that can run more than ten degrees colder than near the coast.

That means more snow sitting on the roof, more freeze-thaw cycles and more ice dams at the eaves. On every roof we replace we install ice & water shield along the eaves and in the valleys, and we carry it further up the roof on low-pitch sections. Heavily wooded lots add leaves and needles that pack the valleys and gutters and keep the shingles damp, so we check valleys, pipe boots and skylight flashing closely on these homes and point out branches that rub or hang over the roof. After a heavy snow, a roof rake used from the ground is safer than climbing up, and if water is already coming in, call us rather than chipping at the ice, which breaks shingles.

Repair or replace, and permits

With a median build year of 1957, many Passaic County roofs have been redone more than once, and some carry two or more layers of shingles. New Jersey limits how many layers a roof can carry, and an extra layer hides rotted decking. We quote a full tear-off to the deck when a roof is replaced, check every section of the deck and replace what will not hold nails. If the roof still has life in it, we tell you that and quote the repair instead. On split-levels and ranches we also look at the low-slope sections over porches and garages, which usually need a membrane rather than shingles.

Our crew is based in Elmwood Park, about 2 miles in a straight line from Paterson. Each Passaic County town has its own construction office, and it decides what needs a permit. When your job needs one, we file it and schedule the inspection. For an active leak, call (201) 397-0232 at any hour: we stop the water first and schedule the permanent repair after.

• Tear-off to the deck and a check of every board or sheet
• New decking wherever the old deck is soft, rotted or will not hold nails
• Ice & water shield along the eaves and in the valleys, synthetic underlayment on the rest
• New flashing at chimneys, walls and skylights, and a new boot on every pipe
• Ridge venting balanced with intake at the eaves
• Daily cleanup and a magnet sweep for nails