FAQ

Not on age alone. A 20 year old architectural asphalt roof is middle-aged rather than finished -- the material is generally rated for 20 to 30 years in this climate, and three-tab for 15 to 20. What decides it is condition: granule loss, brittleness, how flat the covering lies, whether the deck is sound, and how well it has been drained and ventilated. A well-drained roof outlives a neglected one of the same age by years. And in an association community it is worth checking first whether the decision is even yours to make.

Most leak repairs in this market run $350 to $1,800, with genuinely minor work from about $150. The wide spread is because it covers two different jobs: putting right a failure you can see, and finding one you cannot. If a quote is at the top of that range, the thing to ask is what it includes by way of actually locating the entry point, because that is where the work is.

One with a single identifiable entry point, no sign of the water having been getting in for long, and a sound deck underneath -- a split pipe boot, a lifted course, a length of flashing that has come away. Those are same-day repairs at the bottom of the range. A leak stops being minor when the deck has softened, when it has been tracking long enough to stain more than one place, or when it has already been patched and come back.

No. A sound roof does not leak in heavy rain, and treating it as normal is how a small entry point becomes a soft deck. What IS normal is a roof leaking only in certain conditions -- wind-driven rain from one direction, or a long downpour rather than a short one -- because that points at a specific detail failing under specific loading rather than at a hole. It is a diagnosis, not a reassurance.

Usually not the full term. The rating describes the material under test conditions, not a roof on a particular house, and in this climate freeze and thaw at the eaves, ventilation, drainage and the quality of the original nailing all move the real figure. A 30 year product commonly gives 22 to 27 well-maintained years here. It also matters what happened in year one: a roof nailed badly is on a shorter clock from the day it went on.

Usually not, on a house. Replacing the roof COVERING on a detached one- or two-family dwelling is ordinary maintenance under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7 -- no permit, no notice, no inspection. Three or more units, an attached building or anything structural is a different answer. In an association community the binding constraint is usually not the construction office at all, but the governing documents, which are a separate question from the building code.

It is a Florida rule and it does not apply in New Jersey. The 25% rule comes from the Florida Building Code Existing Building, where repairing or replacing more than a quarter of a roof within a year can require the whole thing to be brought up to current code. New Jersey has no equivalent provision. It turns up in searches here because national content repeats it without saying which state it belongs to, and anyone quoting it at you in this state is citing the wrong code book.

In New Jersey the question is not the job title, it is the registration. Anyone doing home improvement work on a residence must be registered as a home improvement contractor, and the registration number has to appear on their advertising, their vehicle and any contract. Beyond the paperwork, the practical limit is diagnosis: sealing a visible hole is within most people's reach, and working out that water is entering at a chimney and surfacing two rooms away generally is not.