How a Milford job runs, step by step: free quote, written scope, written quote, sign-off - and the cheaper option named when there is one.
Free inspection, an honest answer about what is up there, then a written quote.
Tell us the address, the township, and what kind of building it is -- house, farmhouse, barn or outbuilding. Those are genuinely different jobs with different surveys, and knowing which before we set off saves everybody a trip across the plateau.
On a house: the slope, the details that fail, and the roof space, because what is under the visible covering out here is often not what anybody expects. On an outbuilding: standing inside and looking up at purlins and rafters, because that is where a leaking roof does its real damage.
What is actually up there, what is being taken off, what is going back, and decking or purlin work as its own line rather than folded in. On slate, a plain statement of whether the stone or only the fixings have gone, because that decides the whole number.
Materials confirmed before they arrive, the construction office dealt with where a permit is genuinely required, and a before-and-after set including the parts you would otherwise never see.
Ranges for Hunterdon County. Your own written quote follows.
$12,000-18,000 on a 2,000 sq ft house.
Minor work from about $150.
Standing seam $10-18 per sq ft.
Large total, low rate.
New slate $22-35 per sq ft.
Epdm $5-9, tpo $6-12 per sq ft.
More on a large barn frontage.
Repairs that follow, $350 - $1,800.
None of them appear in a national cost guide, and all three can move a number by an order of magnitude.
On housing this age, asphalt laid over standing seam or slate in the 1970s is common and nobody has been up since. That changes the tear-off, the disposal, the deck condition and the right replacement -- so it is established before a price rather than discovered on the second morning.
A barn roof is a large simple plane: cheap per square foot, expensive in total. There is no insulation, no ventilation problem and no ceiling to protect, so years of water did their damage to purlins and rafters. Where the frame is sound, a re-covering is excellent value. Where it is not, the covering is the smaller half of the job.
Natural slate outlives its nails and its valley metal by a long way. A roof shedding tiles is most often sound stone on failed fixings, and renailing with the slate reused costs a fraction of new slate at $22 to $35 a square foot. Getting this wrong in the wrong direction costs tens of thousands.
Milford Borough is a square mile and a quarter; the service area is four townships. Travel is a real cost on a small job. We would rather name it, and batch visits where it makes sense, than put it in a rate where you cannot see it.
Worth knowing before you start ringing round, particularly on a building with no ceiling under it.
Roofs in this part of New Jersey fail at the edges over winter -- water backs up under the courses at the eaves, freezes, lifts them, and the ceiling below reports it during the first proper thaw. Wind coming up the river valley does the rest, and on an exposed plateau property there is not much between a roof and the weather.
On a farm building the timing question is different and more forgiving in one way and less in another. There is no ceiling to stain, so nothing forces the issue -- which is exactly why barn roofs get left until the structure underneath has taken years of water. If you know a barn is leaking, the useful time to deal with it is while the frame is still the cheap part of the job.
A free written quote, no obligation.