Ramsey Roofing, Chimney, Siding and Masonry Contractors NJ

The Same County, Two Different Storms

Bergen County is small enough that people assume one storm hits it evenly. It does not work that way, and Ida proved it.

The rain gauges recorded very different storms within a few miles of each other, and the damage pattern down there was nothing like the one up here.

The storm that shaped this end of the county was Irene, in August 2011. That is the high-water mark local roofs and chimneys were tested against.

Exposure matters more than any average. A roof that catches wind off open ground loses shingles that an identical roof three streets over keeps.

So we look at what surrounds your house before we talk about product. Aspect, tree cover and the direction of the weather all change the specification.

What the Canopy Drops Into the Gutters

A wooded lot is worth having and expensive to ignore. Everything the trees shed ends up in the gutter, the valley or the chimney cap.

• Needles and seed pods packed into gutter runs and downspout elbows

• Leaf mat sitting in roof valleys where two slopes meet

• Debris resting against the chimney’s back wall and cricket

• Blocked screens and caps that hold water above the flashing line

We clear all of it, then check what the sitting debris already did to the metal and the shingle edge underneath, because that is where most hanger, seam and leader repairs begin.

Twice a year is the honest interval on a lot with mature trees. Once a year is a compromise, and none is a leak waiting for a thaw.

Reroofing a House That Sits Under Trees

Trees change the job in three ways: what falls on the roof, what shades it, and what we have to work around to get up there.

Shade keeps a north slope damp for days after the south slope has dried. The two halves of the same roof age at different rates.

That is why we photograph both slopes and quote them honestly. Sometimes half a roof is genuinely fine and replacing it would be selling you something.

Access gets planned the same day. Ladder positions, staging and where the dumpster sits are settled before the crew arrives, not while they are standing there.

When a Limb Comes Down on the Roof

A branch does not need to be big to open a roof. A falling limb concentrates its weight on a few square inches of shingle.

The visible damage is usually smaller than the real damage. Impact cracks the shingle mat well outside the hole and bruises it further out again.

We tarp first, properly, with the sheet run over the ridge and fastened into sound material rather than nailed through the damage.

Then we open enough of the covering to see whether the sheathing took the blow. Sheathing repair is not ordinary maintenance and it is not optional.

Every photograph goes to you the same day, in a form your insurer will accept. You should never have to take our word for what is up there.

 

Snow, Melt and the Details an Eighties Roof Never Had

A full replacement is the one chance to fix what the last crew left. Most of what we correct is ventilation and valley detail.

Ice dams form when a warm attic melts snow that refreezes at the cold eave. The cure is intake at the soffit and exhaust at the ridge, balanced.

A good share of the ridge vents we open up are strangled by insulation pushed into the soffit. Adding more vent on top of that fixes nothing.

Valleys carry more water than any other part of the roof and take the most debris on a wooded lot. We line them with metal, not shingle weave.

Ice and water membrane runs up from the eaves and through every valley. On a forty-year-old house that detail almost certainly was not there originally.

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Chimneys That Live in the Shade

A chimney under trees stays wet. Overhanging branches keep the crown from drying, and the top courses take the damage first.

Wet masonry plus a freeze cycle equals spalled brick and open joints. That is the whole mechanism, and it runs every winter here.

Shaded stacks also grow moss and algae on the north face, which holds moisture against the masonry long after the rain has stopped.

On a 1980s house the stack and the roof are usually the same age, which is unusual in this county and makes the diagnosis simpler.

 

Crown, Cap and How Far Down We Rebuild

The crown is a sloped concrete wash on top of the masonry, and it is the part that fails first on a shaded stack.

A cracked crown lets water into the brick from above, and no amount of pointing lower down will stop it. Fix the top first.

A cap keeps rain, leaves and animals out of the flue. Under a canopy it is not an accessory, it is the reason the flue stays dry.

Where the damage runs deeper we rebuild from the roofline up, or lower if the joints demand it, and we tell you which before the first course comes off.

 

Finding Where the Water Actually Gets In

A leak shows up on a ceiling a long way from where it started. Water runs along framing until something stops it.

So we trace it rather than guess. That means going into the attic with a light before anyone goes on the roof with a bucket of sealant.

On a wooded lot the entry point is usually a junction where debris has been sitting, not an area of open field shingle.

• Step flashing at a sidewall that was surface-sealed instead of woven

• Chimney counterflashing let into a mortar joint that has opened

• A missing saddle behind a wide stack where debris collects

• Valley metal that was cut short of the eave

A saddle, or cricket, sheds water around the back of the chimney instead of letting it pond there. On a wide stack it is not optional.

When we cannot see it, we run water on the roof in stages, one detail at a time, with somebody watching inside. It takes longer and it works.

 

Siding on the Elevation That Never Dries

Siding does not wear evenly. The south wall bakes and the north wall stays damp, and they fail in completely different ways.

On an exposed elevation the failure is mechanical: loosened nails, cracked panels and wind-driven rain pushed up behind the courses.

On a shaded elevation it is biological, and it is slower, and it is usually further along than the homeowner thinks by the time we are called.

 

Green Streaks, Black Streaks and What They Mean

Green on a north wall is usually algae. Black streaking that runs downward from the roof edge is a different organism and a different fix.

Neither one is cosmetic once it has been there for years. What holds moisture against a wall eventually gets behind it.

We wash gently, at low pressure. Blasting vinyl or fiber cement drives water into the joints and does more harm than the growth did.

If panels come off we look at what is behind them: the housewrap, the sheathing and whether the wall has been drying at all.

We match what is there where we can, and tell you plainly when a discontinued profile means the elevation has to be done as a whole.

 

Steps, Walls and the Mortar They Were Built With

Masonry on a sloping lot has one job it was never designed for: holding back wet ground. Most of what fails here fails for that reason.

A retaining wall without drainage behind it is a dam. Water builds up, freezes, and pushes the wall out a fraction of an inch each winter.

Steps go the same way from below. Frost lifts the bottom tread, the riser opens, and the whole flight starts to move as one.

Mortar choice is where Ramsey differs from most. That eighteenth-century house on Island Avenue was laid up with a mortar of clay, straw and animal hair.

Soft old stone needs a mortar softer than itself. Portland cement is harder, so the moisture goes through the stone instead and the face spalls off.

You do not need a landmark to run into this. Any older stone or brick around here deserves a mortar match before anybody starts repointing work .

 

What the Ordinance Actually Says Here

One caution about the paperwork. The borough’s flood ordinance recites coastal V zone provisions about wave action, carried over from a model ordinance.

Ramsey is inland. If you read that section and wonder why it discusses breaking waves, that is why, and none of it applies to your house.

On permits generally the state rule governs. N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7 treats replacing roof covering or siding on a one or two-family home as ordinary maintenance.

• No construction permit for replacing existing roof covering like for like

• Same exemption for siding, with polypropylene the one material that needs one

• Anything touching sheathing or structure falls outside the exemption entirely

• Removing more than six trees a year needs a $25 permit

 

Licensed, Insured and Used to These Lots

We hold New Jersey Home Improvement Contractor license 13VH13359900 and carry insurance. Ask any contractor for both numbers before you let them on a ladder.

Twenty-five years of this work has been spent in Bergen County, which is why we can tell you what a storm did here rather than nationally.

A wooded, sloping lot is a different working day. Ladders need footing, staging needs level ground, and a dumpster needs somewhere it will not sink.

We walk all of that with you before the estimate is written, so nothing on the day of the job is a surprise to either of us.

The estimate itself is written, itemized and photographed. If we say the sheathing is gone in two bays, you will see the two bays.

And if the roof has years left, we say so. Telling a homeowner their forty-year-old roof is fine for now costs us a job and keeps a customer.

 

What an Estimate Costs You

Nothing. The inspection is free, the photographs are free, and you keep both whether or not you hire us to do the work.

Financing is available if the job is bigger than the month allows. A roof does not wait for a good quarter and it should not have to.

We will also stage work where staging makes sense: the leaking elevation this season, the sound one when you are ready.

What we will not do is quote a repair we know will not hold, so that you call us back in eighteen months for the real one.

 

The Towns That Share Our Weather

Northern Bergen gets a different storm to the south of the county, and Mahwah proves it — same Ramapo foothills, same wind, same trees. Wyckoff sits south with comparable lots on flatter ground, and Ridgewood beyond that, where the housing is a good deal older.