Ice Dam Repair in Kenilworth from $150. If the ceiling stains during a thaw rather than during rain, this is almost certainly what you have. Free inspection and a written quote.
Uniform housing means uniform heat loss, so ice dams here tend to appear on the same aspect of several houses in the same week. If a neighbor has had one, checking your own roof space before the next freeze costs nothing and is the cheapest repair available.
An ice dam is a heat problem wearing a roofing costume. Warm air escaping into the roof space melts the snow lying on the upper roof. That meltwater runs down to the eaves, which are cold because nothing heated sits under them, and refreezes there. Repeat for a week and you have a ridge of ice holding water behind it.



The roofing element prices like any other repair, $350 to $1,800. But be clear about what you are buying: an ice dam is caused by heat escaping into the roof space, and the repair that ends it is air sealing, insulation and ventilation. That is not roofing, we do not pretend it is, and no published New Jersey figure for it exists to quote you honestly. Consistent housing keeps prices predictable and surprises rare, which is worth more than it sounds. It also means a neighbor's invoice is a reasonable benchmark for your own -- and if a quote is far above the street, that is a fair question to ask.
The roof side: an ice barrier membrane at the eaves where the covering is coming off anyway, the damaged courses, and the flashing or valley the water has been getting past.
Insulation and air sealing work in the roof space, which is the part that actually stops the melting. We will tell you what needs doing and that it is somebody else's trade rather than inventing a number.
One winter, usually. That is a legitimate thing to buy if you are selling or if money is tight this year, and it should be sold as what it is rather than as a fix.
Consistency is the useful thing about Kenilworth. Where a street was built as a set, the roofs age as a set, and a neighbor's experience is a genuinely reliable guide to what is under yours. If three houses on a road have had the same eaves problem, the fourth is not a mystery.
Worth knowing before you start ringing round, and worth acting on before the first freeze rather than after it.
Northern roofs do not fail steadily. They fail in the freeze and in the first thaw after it, which means every roofer in Union County takes the same calls in the same two weeks. A roof that could have been surveyed comfortably in October becomes a queue in January, and the repair that could have been planned becomes an emergency.
Streets built as a set age as a set, which makes this the easiest place on the list to diagnose.
Tell us what the houses either side have had done.
Where a street has the same porch or extension roof on every house, they reach the end of their life together.
Uniform stock means the useful question is not what is wrong with your roof but how old it is relative to the street.
Same houses, same chimneys, same detail failing in the same decade.
A compact borough with straightforward access, so the practical limit on an emergency here is the weather rather than the geography.
Pre-war chimneys, and eaves with no ice barrier.
Flat roofs behind parapets. Access is the first problem.
Low ground, open water. Which way is the water going?
Post-war and often overlaid, so the eaves are buried.
Steep pitch. Specific details fail, not the field.
Rear additions and garages, and their junctions.
The widest age spread. Age decides where to look.
The questions that decide this job, answered up front.
We can clear it, and sometimes that is the right emergency step. But it will be back within the week, because the cause is heat escaping into the roof space and nothing about clearing ice changes that. Steam removal and chipping both risk the covering, and chipping frequently does real damage.
They can keep a channel open and stop water pooling behind a dam, which is a legitimate holding measure on a roof that cannot be improved this year. They do not stop the melting, they cost money to run every winter, and anybody selling them as the solution is selling a symptom.
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.
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.
The roof space walked as well as the roof, before any price. The cause named in writing, not just the work.