Roofing Contractor in Totowa, NJ — Working From Our Own Borough

The Permit Question Totowa Homeowners Get Wrong

Under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7, replacing the roof covering on a detached one or two family home is ordinary maintenance. No construction permit is required for that work anywhere in New Jersey.

Totowa’s own fee schedule reflects it. Section 153-6K sets a roofing and siding fee for residential structures other than one and two family homes, which is the borough writing the carve-out into its own pricing.

The moment sheathing comes off and goes back on, that changes. Decking is structural, structural work is not ordinary maintenance, and a permit is required.

There is a Totowa-specific trap as well. Chapter 236 of the borough code says property taxes and assessments have to be current before a permit or licence issues. A tax question can hold up a roof.

We check that before we schedule, not on the morning the dumpster arrives. The Building Department is at 973-956-1000 and we are in there often enough to know how they like paperwork submitted.

 

Streets That Take a Truck, Streets That Do Not

Totowa is a mix. There are broad blocks off Union Boulevard where a truck and a container sit comfortably, and there are older side streets where they do not.

Where the driveway is short and the setback is tight, the container goes on the street, and that has to be arranged rather than assumed.

Deliveries get staged. Bundles land on the roof in weights the deck can carry, in an order that keeps the sidewalk usable for your neighbours.

On a tear-off we sheet the ground and the shrubs before the first shingle moves, and we magnet-sweep the driveway and the lawn at the end of every day, not just at the end of the job.

What Gets Agreed Before the Number

An estimate that ignores access is an estimate that moves later. We settle the logistics with you first, then price the work.

• Where the container sits and which day it gets swapped

• Whether the driveway stays usable and for how long

• Which slope gets stripped first and what that closes off

• Start and finish times, and how the site is left overnight

Then the scope: what comes off, what goes back on, and exactly what happens if the deck underneath is worse than either of us expected.

The Low Side of the Borough

The Passaic runs along Totowa’s eastern edge, and the borough sits inside the same river corridor that governs Little Falls and Wayne downstream.

Totowa readopted its flood damage prevention ordinance, Chapter 189, in September 2023, adopting the FEMA Passaic County flood study dated 17 April 2020 by reference.

For a roof that mostly matters in one way: on a low-lying property, water that comes off your roof has nowhere generous to go.

Undersized gutters and leaders that discharge two feet from the foundation are a roofing decision with a basement consequence. We size and place them as part of the roof, not as an afterthought.

If your gutters are the actual problem we will tell you that rather than sell you a roof you do not need yet.

Higher Ground and What the Wind Does There

The eastern side of the borough rises toward the Garret Mountain ridge, and the exposure changes with it.

On the higher blocks the ridge cap and the rake edge take more pressure than the sheltered slope of the same house does.

We fasten to the upper end of the manufacturer’s wind schedule where the exposure calls for it. That usually means more nails per shingle, not a different shingle.

Rake edges get metal, sealed and fixed tight, because the rake is the first edge wind gets underneath.

Chimneys on Older Totowa Houses

On a pre-1970 house the stack is usually older than the roof around it, and it is often the actual source of the stain on the bedroom ceiling.

Failed flashing, an open crown, a chase cover holding water: all of it reads as a roof leak from inside the house and none of it is fixed by shingles.

We do chimney repair and rebuilding in house, so when the roof and the stack both need work they get solved in the same week by the same crew.

Everything Else on the Envelope

Roofing is the majority of what we do here, but a house does not fail in one discipline at a time.

Siding, gutters, chimney work and masonry are all in house, which matters when the roof edge, the fascia and the top of the wall are the same problem viewed from three angles.

Under the state rule, replacing existing siding on a one or two family home is also ordinary maintenance, with polypropylene siding the one exception that needs a permit.

We handle siding replacement and masonry work for the same households, in the same borough, with the same crew and the same paperwork.

Why Being Local Is Not Just Marketing

Totowa is a small borough of roughly 11,000 people and 3,900 households. Reputation moves quickly here and we are not hard to find.

The crew on your roof is our crew. We do not hand the job to whoever answered the phone that week.

If something is not right after we leave, you call and we come back. That is a much easier promise to keep in the borough where our own trucks are parked.

 

Out From Totowa

The same crew works the towns either side of us most weeks. West across the county line into Wayne, where the flood paperwork changes the job, south into Little Falls and Woodland Park, and north into Hawthorne. Nothing about the estimate changes if you sit on the other side of one of those lines.