Roof replacement in Glen Rock, NJ
A new roof in Glen Rock usually goes onto one of two kinds of house: a steep, detailed roof from the commuter decades, some of them still in slate, or a plainer roof on one of the later, post-war houses. Either way it stands close to the house next door. We plan the tear-off around that, specify the roof to the house, and put every line of it in an itemized written estimate.
A station suburb, built fast on small lots.
Glen Rock was Dutch farm country until the Erie opened a station at Rock Road in 1905. A trolley line followed, and the population doubled in each decade from 1910 to 1930. Most of what went up in those years was single-family houses on modest lots in a tight, walkable grid around what are now the Main Line and Boro Hall stations. The remaining farmland was built on after the war.
Older than all of it, a few Dutch sandstone farmhouses from the 1700s still stand on Prospect Street and Ackerman Avenue, one of them on the National Register. They are the exception. For most houses in the borough, what shapes a re-roof is the pitch and detail of the roof itself, and how little room there is beside it.
What each kind of Glen Rock roof asks for.
Most roofs in the borough are steep asphalt shingle over gables and gambrels, with original slate still on some of the pre-1930 houses. A replacement estimate should say, line by line, how the new roof deals with your particular house.
| The house | What makes its roof different | What the estimate should name |
|---|---|---|
| Dutch Colonial | A steep lower slope, a shallow upper one, and a break between the two | Shingle on the lower slopes; membrane under the whole upper slope, or standing seam where it is too flat for shingle; its own metal at the break |
| Colonial Revival, Queen Anne | Steep pitches, several gables, the valleys between them, a brick chimney | Architectural shingle or synthetic slate; valleys lined in formed metal; the chimney re-flashed, with a cricket behind a wide one |
| Original slate still on | Stone that may have decades left, on nails and flashing that may not | Keeping it, priced first; natural or synthetic slate if it has to come off |
| The later, post-war houses | Simpler, lower roofs, with joints where later work meets the original | Architectural shingle, ventilation corrected at ridge and soffit, every roof-to-wall joint flashed new |
More on each material: architectural asphalt shingle, natural and synthetic slate and standing seam metal.
Board decks and shallow tops.
Houses from the commuter decades predate plywood sheathing; their roofs were laid on individual boards. A century and several re-roofings later, some of those boards are split, over-nailed or gapped. Each is checked once the old roof is off, and where they will not give the new roof a solid base, new sheathing goes over them. That line is priced per sheet in the estimate, and you pay only for the sheets that go down.
On a gambrel, the upper slope is where a new roof earns its keep. Asphalt shingle is allowed down to a 2-in-12 pitch, and between 2 and 4 in 12 it needs a doubled underlayment. We run ice-and-water membrane over that whole upper slope regardless, and where the pitch is too low for shingle to make sense, we price standing seam metal up there instead. The break gets its own formed metal, lapped by the courses on both sides.
Re-roofing a house that stands close to the next.
Where the container goes
If the driveway can take it without boxing in the house next door, it stands there; if not, it goes at the curb. Either way the spot is agreed before the day, not argued over on it.
The neighbor’s side
The wall, windows and planting that face the next house are covered before tear-off starts. Old roofing goes straight into the container rather than being thrown loose off the eave, and both yards are swept with a magnet every evening.
One slope at a time
We strip only as much roof as can be covered again the same day. On a small lot there is no room to stockpile a whole roof’s debris, and no reason to leave a house open overnight.
The paperwork
Before we close out, we register the manufacturer warranty in your name and send you the confirmation, along with a set of photographs of the new roof.
What a new roof costs.
For architectural asphalt shingle, budget $4–$7 per sq ft, roof only, with tearing off the old roof as its own line at $2–$6 per sq ft. For a modest house with 2,500 sq ft of roof, synthetic slate runs $50,000–$75,000 for the whole roof, and natural slate $40,000–$70,000 in Pennsylvania stone or $60,000–$100,000 in Vermont. Cedar is priced after we measure. Your house’s own number arrives as an itemized estimate, in writing, after an inspection that costs nothing, and the full breakdown is in our roof replacement cost guide.
If the trouble is one chimney, one valley or one gambrel break rather than the whole roof, a repair is the better money, and the inspection will say so. See roof repair in Glen Rock.
Before you sign for a new roof.
Roof repair
Leaks traced on gambrels, chimneys and old slate.
Glen Rock →Cost guide
Every material, the tear-off and whole-roof figures.
Read →Ridgewood
New roofs on the pre-war houses over the border.
Next door →Glen Rock
The borough and everything we do on its houses.
The borough →What a full tear-off involves → · Book the free inspection → · Gutters in Glen Rock →
Can a gambrel roof be done in asphalt shingle all the way up?
The lower slopes, almost always. The upper slopes depend on their pitch: shingle is allowed down to 2-in-12 only with a doubled underlayment, and we lay ice-and-water membrane under the whole upper slope either way. Where the top is flatter than shingle suits, standing seam metal is the better roof up there, and it is hard to see from the street.
Our house still has its original slate. Should we replace it?
Not until someone has checked whether the stone is sound. Slate from that era can outlast its nails and flashing by decades, and new metal with a round of repairs may be the better money. If the stone has begun to delaminate across whole slopes, replacement in natural or synthetic slate is the honest advice, and the photographs will show why.
What roofing suits one of the older Glen Rock houses?
On most of the commuter-era houses, architectural asphalt shingle is the sensible choice: its thicker, layered profile throws the shadow lines a steep Colonial Revival or Queen Anne was drawn for. Where a house was built for slate and the slate cannot be saved, synthetic slate keeps most of that look at far less weight than stone.
Is a permit required for a new roof in Glen Rock?
Usually not for the roof covering itself: on a detached one- or two-family house, New Jersey's construction code treats re-roofing as ordinary maintenance, with no permit and no notice to the borough. Replacing sheathing does need a permit, and on the commuter-era houses with board decks that is a real possibility. When one is needed, the application and the inspection are both handled by us, and if the container has to stand in the street, any permit for that is ours to arrange as well.
Do you ever lay a new roof over the old one?
No. Every layer comes off. A second layer hides the deck you are paying to have checked, adds weight to framing that was never sized for it, and makes the next leak far harder to trace. On a house this old, what lies under the roofing is exactly what needs to be seen.
A new roof, planned for a Glen Rock lot.
Itemized, photographed and specified to the house, with the tear-off planned around the one next door.