Clifton NJ Roofing Contractor, Licensed by the City

Clifton’s Own Contractor Licence

Most New Jersey municipalities simply enforce the state Contractor’s Registration Act. Clifton goes further.

Chapter 199 of the city code, adopted in 1968, requires a person to be licensed by the City Building Inspector to construct, alter, repair, reroof or reside a building. Chapter 197, the city’s construction code chapter, cross-references it.

In practice that means a homeowner in Clifton has a straightforward filter available: ask whoever is quoting whether they are licensed by the city, not just registered with the state.

We deal with the city requirement as part of the job, along with the permit itself. The Building Department is reachable at 973-470-5793 and inspections at 973-470-5809.

Separately, the state rule still applies: a like-for-like roof covering replacement on a detached one or two family dwelling is ordinary maintenance under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7. In a city with this much attached and multi-family housing, that word detached does a lot of work.

 

Two-Family Buildings and Rented Roofs

About 40% of Clifton households rent, which means a large share of these roofs sit over somebody who is not paying for the work.

We handle that properly. Written notice of working days, agreed parking and access, one entrance kept clear at all times, and a site swept at the end of every day rather than the end of the job.

Where a building is split between owners, we scope and price the roof as one job, because it is one deck and one drainage system whatever the deed says.

Shared chimneys and party walls running up through the roof plane get photographed and quoted explicitly. Those are the details that leak on Clifton two-families, and they are the details that get glossed over in cheap quotes.

Flat Roofs Over the Back

A great many Clifton houses have a pitched main roof and a low-slope deck over a rear extension or a porch.

Those are two different systems and they fail in two different ways. A low-slope roof does not shed water so much as hold it long enough for any weak seam to prove itself.

We specify a single-ply or modified bitumen system to suit the deck and the traffic it takes, and we pay attention to where the low roof meets the wall of the taller section.

That transition is the single most common source of the leak that homeowners describe as coming from nowhere.

Weasel Brook and the Water Question

Weasel Brook runs through Clifton to the Passaic, and the Clifton Avenue corridor has a documented history of flooding tied to ageing culvert infrastructure, with a section collapsing in 2020 and city money committed to replacing it.

Ida in 2021 put water into businesses along that stretch. The city adopted its current flood damage prevention chapter, Chapter 239, in September 2023, working from the FEMA maps effective April 2020.

None of that changes what your own roof does, but it changes what your roof water lands on.

On a tight Clifton lot, a leader discharging beside the foundation or straight onto a neighbour’s driveway is a problem worth solving while the roofers are already there. We size and reposition gutters and leaders as part of the work.

Chimneys, Siding and Masonry in the Older Wards

On pre-war Clifton housing the chimney is older than the roof and often older than the last two roofs.

Failed flashing, an open crown or a deteriorated crown wash all read as roof leaks from inside the house, and none of them are solved by shingles.

We carry out chimney repair and rebuilding, siding and masonry with our own crews, so a house that needs three trades gets one schedule and one point of contact.

 

Out From Clifton

Clifton shares its northern edge with Woodland Park, where the two-family housing pattern carries straight on, and its western edge with Little Falls. We are based just up the road in Totowa and work all three most weeks.