FAQ

An architectural asphalt roof runs $9,500 to $26,000, with most 2,000 square foot houses landing at $12,000 to $18,000 installed -- but that figure describes a suburban house, and out here a good share of the work is not on one. Metal panel is $6 to $12 per square foot and standing seam $10 to $18; natural slate is $22 to $35. A barn priced per square foot is the cheapest roofing there is and the most expensive job on the property, because of how much of it there is.

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. Out here there is a second question that does not arise elsewhere: an agricultural building is a different case, and the answer depends on what it is used for. That gets asked of the township rather than assumed from a website, and each of the five municipalities in this service area has its own construction office.

It depends far more on the material than on the state, and out here the materials are not all asphalt. Architectural asphalt typically gives 20 to 30 years and three-tab 15 to 20. Standing seam metal commonly gives 50 and more. Exposed-fastener panel gives a long life too, but its screws and washers are consumables and want re-tightening -- a panel roof nobody has touched in 25 years is on borrowed time at its fixings rather than in its sheets. Natural slate outlasts all of them, frequently by a century, which is why so much of it around here needs nails rather than stone.

For a standard house, $12,000 to $18,000 covers most 2,000 square foot properties, within a full range of $9,500 to $26,000. The more useful answer for this area is that you cannot price an old building from a published range at all, because the number turns on things nobody can see from the road: what is under the covering, how many layers, whether the deck is boards, and whether the frame was built for the weight of what is on it.

For a standard asphalt roof on an average house, yes -- that is well above the $12,000 to $18,000 most land at. For a large barn it can be entirely normal, because a barn roof is enormous even though the rate per square foot is the lowest of anything we do. And for natural slate at $22 to $35 a square foot it is unremarkable. The number on its own answers nothing; what the quote itemizes does.

In architectural asphalt, roughly $6,600 to $9,600 on New Jersey rates. But watch the units: 1,200 square feet of FLOOR is not 1,200 square feet of roof. Pitch, overhangs and dormers commonly make the roof area a third larger, and on a steep old farmhouse the difference is bigger still. That single confusion explains most quotes that look inexplicably far apart.

There is no honest answer to that from a roofing company, so here is what to judge on instead. Does the quote say what is under the current covering, or only what is going on top. On a farm building, does it describe the frame -- purlins, rafters, plate -- or only the sheets. On slate, does it distinguish between failed stone and failed nails. Is the decking a rate per sheet rather than a lump. Is there a New Jersey registration number on the document. A quote that answers all five came from somebody who went and looked.

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 appears in searches here because national content repeats it without saying which state it belongs to.