How a Passaic job runs, step by step: free quote, written scope, written quote, sign-off - and the cheaper option named when there is one.
Free inspection, the right construction office confirmed, then a written quote.
Tell us the town and the kind of building -- attached, detached, or three units and up. The town tells us which construction office and what it needs; the building tells us whether this roof fails at an edge or in the field, which is most of the diagnosis.
Both, and with a written outcome rather than a verbal verdict. On a flat roof that means measuring standing water; on a pitched roof it means the eaves, the valleys and the penetrations; in the roof space it means looking for where water has actually traveled.
Which office the permit goes to and what it will need, the failed detail named rather than 'repair roof', the system specified where one is being installed, and decking priced per sheet.
Arrangements made with whichever town it is, the site left clean, and a before-and-after set that is yours whatever you decide to do next.
Passaic County figures. Nothing here is a quote until we have seen the job.
Minor work from $150.
Epdm $5-9, tpo $6-12, installed.
Complex $3,000+, nj permit $100-350.
Infrared $400-600 where it is warranted.
Minor work $150-600.
This is the most common confusion in this corner of New Jersey, and it sends people to the wrong conclusion about price.
New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code is statewide and enforced locally. It is identical in Passaic, Clifton, Garfield, Lodi, Elmwood Park, Hawthorne, Totowa and Rutherford. If three contractors from three towns describe three different sets of rules, the rules did not change -- somebody is describing their own habits, or is wrong.
Each town has its own construction office, its own fee schedule and its own inspection diary. A filing at the wrong office costs about a week, which is the only part of this that should ever affect you -- and it is entirely avoidable by confirming the route first.
An attached Garfield two-family, a post-war Clifton ranch with a driveway, and a Victorian Rutherford house with four valleys and a turret are three different jobs. The same roof honestly costs different money across a boundary, because of the building and the access rather than the geography.
A repair at $350 to $1,800 against a replacement at $9,500 to $26,000 is a real decision, and so is a flashing kit instead of a new skylight, or a physical inspection instead of infrared. We name the cheaper option when it is the correct one.
Worth knowing before you start ringing round, because the timing on this work is more predictable than most people assume.
Northern roofs fail at the edges and the outlets in the freeze, and the calls arrive in a cluster during the first thaw. Every roofer across these eight towns takes them in the same two weeks, so a roof that could have been surveyed comfortably in October becomes a queue in January -- and a maintenance visit that would have cost $150 to $600 becomes a repair.
The other clock is the inspection diary, and it is genuinely municipal. How long a closing inspection takes to book differs from town to town and from season to season, which is why the route gets confirmed at the survey rather than assumed. On work with a closing date or a tenant on it, that is the part worth starting early.
A free written quote, no obligation.