Roofing & exteriors in Englewood, NJ

The city sits at the foot of the Palisades, rising eastward toward Englewood Cliffs, with Flat Rock Brook draining the hill back west toward the Overpeck Creek lowlands. Dutch, English and Huguenot farm families settled the English Neighborhood after 1664, and their names are still on the street signs: Brinckerhoff, Van Brunt, Lydecker, Demarest, DeMott. The Northern Branch railroad arrived in 1859 and the commuter town grew out from Depot Square; the decades to the 1920s produced the East Hill estates and the denser blocks along Palisade Avenue. Route 4 brought the post-war building, and 1960s and 70s urban renewal rebuilt much of the Fourth Ward.

Each layer fails in its own way. On the East Hill it is original slate and wood shingle on steep, many-planed roofs: flashing that has outlived its metal, slates cracked by limbs, gutters that cannot keep up with the canopy. Around downtown and along Grand Avenue and Dean Street it is the low-slope roofs on two-families and apartment buildings: seams, parapet caps, drains, the flashing at a shared wall. On the post-war capes and splits to the west it is asphalt shingle at the end of its life, aluminum or vinyl over the original wall, and five-inch gutters on roofs that need six.

We work on all of it: slate, cedar, shingle and membrane roofing, siding, windows and doors, gutters, and decks.

An age spread of two centuries. The 1808 Garret Lydecker House, the East Hill estates, pre-war two-families, 1970s garden apartments and new condominiums along Route 4 all sit inside 07631. A Victorian on the East Hill wants slate or cedar matched to what is there; a 1970s apartment block wants a properly drained membrane. On slate, start with restoration against replacement.

Trees over big roofs. The East Hill carries mature canopy over large, complex roofs, remnants of the same Palisades forest that Flat Rock Brook preserves. That means leaf load in every valley, limbs on slate, and ice dams wherever a full gutter freezes under a warm attic. Gutter guards earn their keep here.

Height, and the wind that comes with it. The hill takes more wind than the flat western blocks. Exposed roofs get high-wind fastening and sealed starter courses.

A dense city with flat roofs. More than 11,500 housing units, a full downtown, the hospital campus on Engle Street and commercial along Route 4 add up to a lot of low-slope roof. There the leak is almost never in the middle of the membrane; it is at a drain, a seam, a curb or a wall, and that is where we look first.

ZIP code served: 07631.

• The East Hill — the First and Second Wards toward Englewood Cliffs: Victorian, Tudor and Colonial Revival estates on large wooded lots
• Palisade Avenue and downtown — the east-west spine: pre-war two-families, small colonials and apartment buildings
• Grand Avenue and Dean Street — west-side corridors of pre-war frame houses and apartment blocks
• The Fourth Ward — south of Palisade Avenue: older frame houses alongside 1970s garden apartments and Rock Creek Terrace south of Route 4
• Engle Street and North Van Brunt Street — the north-south streets through the center, hospital campus to Depot Square
• The western and southern blocks — post-war capes, splits and ranches toward Teaneck and Leonia, and newer condominiums along Route 4