Roofing & exteriors in Lodi, NJ
Lodi is a mill town on the Saddle River: 26,207 people on 2.29 square miles, at about 30 feet of elevation, in a borough the river splits in two. Its housing dates largely to the mill and factory eras, roughly 1890s to 1950s. That means frame houses close together, low-pitched roofs, siding layered over the original wood, and gutters draining onto small lots on ground that floods.
The borough took its name from Lodi in Lombardy and its shape from the Saddle River. Thousands of immigrants came to work the textile mills along the river, which is why the oldest housing stands close to the water and to Main Street. Dye and chemical plants replaced the mills after the 1940s, and the streets filled in through the post-war decades. Today 10,414 housing units sit on 2.27 square miles of land, with Route 46, Route 17 and Interstate 80 running through and four bridges tying the two halves together. The river gives and takes: after a severe 1977 flood, Lodi in 1982 became one of the earliest communities in the country to use federal buyout funds. Sixteen riverfront houses west of Main Street came down, and the land became Voto Tedesco Park. In 1999 Hurricane Floyd put the Saddle River over its banks, along Main Street from Avenue E to Central Avenue, and six feet deep across the park.
That history is written on the houses. A two-story frame house from the mill era has usually had two or three roofs, some laid over the one before, and its low-pitched sections hold water where shingle was never the right material. Siding is typically vinyl or aluminum over the original clapboard with nothing behind it. Window openings have been shrunk by inserts, and five-inch gutters drop water beside a foundation on a lot that is already low. We do all of it: roofs and membrane, siding, windows and doors, gutters and decks. Start with roofing or call (201) 446-5941.
Four things a Lodi roof has to deal with
Low ground beside a river that floods
At about 30 feet of elevation, with the Saddle River through the middle of town, where a roof's water goes after the gutter matters. We size gutters to the roof area, run downspouts toward the street rather than the foundation, and avoid dry wells on ground this low, where a high water table stops them draining.
Houses a few feet apart
Ten thousand housing units on two square miles means narrow side yards. That governs where we stage, where tear-off debris lands, how we protect the neighbor's siding, and how we flash the wall where a lower roof meets a taller one.
Low-pitched roofs on mill-era frame houses
The riverfront survivors are two-story sided frame houses with low-pitched roofs, and shingle that shallow leaks once the sealant strips age. Below 2:12 we install a fully adhered membrane; between 2:12 and 4:12 we shingle over a full ice-and-water underlayment, not just a strip at the eave.
Three highways through one small town
Route 46, Route 17 and I-80 cross the borough, and the houses backing onto them collect road film on the siding and traffic noise through the sash. Fiber cement washes clean better than old aluminum, and laminated glass in a new window cuts highway noise more than a standard double pane.
What we install on Lodi houses
Roofing for two pitches
Architectural shingle with ice-and-water membrane and new step flashing on the steeper roofs; fully adhered EPDM or TPO over tapered insulation, with edge metal and overflow scuppers, on the shallow ones. Leaks are traced to their source first — see where roof leaks actually start.
Siding over a wall we have opened
Fiber cement or insulated vinyl over stripped, wrapped and flashed sheathing, never a third layer over the aluminum and clapboard beneath. On the low streets, sheathing and sill that flooding left soft are replaced first.
Windows & doors at full size
Full-frame replacement that gives back the opening an insert took away, flashed into the weather barrier; sound-rated glass facing a highway. What replacement costs in Bergen County covers the choices.
Low ground, old grids, and roofs on their third life.
Central Bergen's towns grew up along the Hackensack and the Saddle, so they carry two kinds of housing at once. Pre-war frame houses stand on the grids near the water; capes, splits and colonials fill the streets laid out after the war. The exterior work is about drainage on low ground, cladding over original wood, undersized gutters and roofs replaced more than once.
Neighborhoods and streets we work in Lodi
ZIP code served: 07644.
- Main Street and the riverfront area west of it — the oldest mill-era frame houses, on ground the Saddle River has reached more than once.
- The blocks around Voto Tedesco Park, cleared by the 1982 buyout; the houses that remain share the low ground.
- Avenue E to Central Avenue along Main Street — the stretch Floyd's floodwater covered in 1999.
- Riverview Avenue and Garden Street — residential streets on the older side of town.
- The Route 46 and Route 17 corridors — houses backing onto the highways, and flat-roofed commercial buildings that need membrane.
- Around Felician University, Lodi High School, Thomas Jefferson Middle School and the Lodi Memorial Library — the streets away from the river, mostly post-war capes and small colonials.
Lodi response, anywhere in 07644. Call (201) 446-5941 or request a free written estimate online.
Adjacent Bergen towns
Does Johannemann & Sons serve Lodi, NJ?
Yes — all of 07644, on both sides of the Saddle River: the older streets along Main Street and the riverfront, the blocks around Riverview Avenue and Garden Street, and the Route 46 corridor. We replace and repair the roofs on the borough's mill-era frame houses, install low-slope membrane where the pitch is too shallow for shingle, and handle siding, windows and doors, gutters and decks. We work across Bergen County from our Edgewater base.
My Lodi house is a few blocks from the Saddle River and has taken on water before. What does that mean for the exterior?
Two things. First, the roof and gutters must not add to the problem. We size gutters to the roof area and run downspouts to the street side, never toward a foundation on ground this low. Second, water that reached the walls may have soaked the sheathing behind the siding. Before we quote re-siding we open the lowest courses, check the sheathing and the sill, and replace what is soft rather than covering it again.
Do I need a permit for a new roof or new siding in Lodi?
The borough's construction office decides, and it depends on scope. Like-for-like reroofing and re-siding usually count as ordinary maintenance under the New Jersey Uniform Construction Code, but structural work — new rafters or sheathing, a deck, a deck ledger — needs a permit and inspections. New Jersey allows two roof layers at most; a house that already carries two gets a full tear-off, not a third layer. We confirm the requirement with the borough before we start and file the paperwork ourselves.
Roofing for the homes of Lodi, NJ.
A free written estimate with photographs and named materials, from a Bergen County exterior crew based in Edgewater.