FAQ

Most New Jersey roof repairs run $350 to $1,800, with minor work from $150 to $600. A leak is usually $400 to $1,400 and a small isolated one $400 to $900. Flashing is $300 to $900, or $300 to $1,200 around a chimney, vent or skylight. New Jersey runs above the national average on labor, which is why online calculators read low.

Almost certainly because the repair went where the ceiling was wet rather than where the water entered. Water gets in at a junction, runs along a rafter and drops at the first low point, which on a shallow pitch can be several feet away. That is why the roof space gets inspected here before anything is quoted -- the underside of the deck shows the direction of travel.

That is an ice dam, and it is the opposite of a rain leak. Heat escaping into the roof space melts snow on the upper roof; the meltwater refreezes at the cold eaves and dams; water then backs up behind it and goes in above the line the covering sheds from. It shows up during a thaw. The lasting fix is insulation and ventilation, not shingles.

Usually not. New Jersey treats repair or replacement of an existing roof covering on a DETACHED one- or two-family dwelling as ordinary maintenance under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7 -- no permit, no notice, no inspection. Attached houses, buildings with three or more units and anything structural are the exceptions, and we tell you which you are at the survey.

It is Florida Building Code, Existing Building, section 706.1.1: not more than 25 per cent of a roof area repaired, replaced or recovered in any twelve-month period unless the whole system is brought up to current code. It gets quoted nationally because it sounds universal. It is not New Jersey law, and it is not what decides whether your roof should be repaired.

Look away from the failure. If the covering across the rest of the slope still lies flat, still holds its granules and is not brittle, the roof has life in it and the repair is the right job. If the slope is generally spent, a repair is money spent twice. Then check the layer count: two coverings is the practical ceiling.

Ask for the New Jersey HIC registration number and check it on the public register. Then ask whether they will look in the roof space, and whether the quote will name the cause rather than just the work. Those three questions cost nothing and they separate most of a shortlist immediately.

No. The inspection is free, it covers the roof space as well as the roof, the written quote is free, and neither carries an obligation. The written cause is yours to keep even if you use somebody else. What we will not do is give you a price at the curb without going up.