What Shingle Roofing Work Involves, Step by Step
Shingle roofing is a sequence, and skipping a step is how leaks come back. We start with a roof inspection from the ladder and again up on the rooftop, then schedule the tear-off around your week.
Here is the order we follow on a typical pitched roof:
- Tear-off strips the old field course, roofing felt, and tar paper down to the decking with a pry bar and roofing shovel.
- We walk the roof deck board by board for rot, soft spots, and delamination where water wicked past the old underlayment.
- Rotted sheathing comes out, and a sagged rafter, joist, truss, or ridge beam gets sistered before anything covers it.
- Ice-and-water shield is rolled into the eaves, valleys, and penetrations, self-adhered so its adhesive seals to the substrate.
- Synthetic underlayment covers the field, fastened with ring-shank nails or capped screws from a nail gun and air compressor.
- New drip edge anchors the rake, verge, and eave edges, while step flashing, counter-flashing, pipe flashing, and fresh vent boots go in at every wall.
- Shingles lay in staggered courses, from the starter course at the eave up to a new ridge cap.
- Ridge vent, soffit vent, insulation, and the vapor barrier get checked together, then we magnet-sweep the yard for nails.
Materials We Stock, and Why We Recommend Them
A shingle is not just a shingle. The mat, the granulated surface, and the way it is laminated decide how long it holds against wind uplift and summer sun.
We install lines like GAF Timberline HDZ, Owens Corning Duration, and CertainTeed Landmark Pro, and we will show you the weight and wind rating difference before you pick.
- Asphalt shingle is the workhorse, a fiberglass mat soaked in asphalt and coated with granules, sold by the roofing square.
- Architectural shingle is thicker, laminated, and dimensional, reading like wood shake with a longer manufacturer warranty.
- Three-tab shingle is the flatter budget option, fine on a rental or porch canopy but quicker to lift in a nor'easter.
- Designer shingles copy cedar shake or slate without the weight a rafter has to carry.
- Synthetic underlayment has replaced roofing felt and tar paper on most of our work, though felt still suits some tile assemblies.
- Drip edge, ridge cap, pipe boots, sealant, and roof cement handle the details where water actually gets in.
Not every roof here wants asphalt. We service the rest too:
- Wood shake and cedar shake need hand-split repairs and re-nailing, not shingle patches.
- Slate, clay tile, and concrete tile are heavy, so we check purlin, batten, and counterbatten spacing before touching a course.
- Metal panel, standing-seam panel, and corrugated panel usually get refit at the fastener and gasket line first.
- TPO, EPDM, and PVC membrane cover most flat commercial rooftops, and a built-up roof with hot tar or bitumen can sometimes take a coating instead of a full recover.
- Modified bitumen torch-down sections get fresh waterproofing at the laps and weatherproofing at the scupper and coping.
What an Inspection Turns Up, and What Failure Looks Like
An inspection is mostly reading wear. Water rarely announces itself. It seeps past a nail, wicks along a rafter, and shows up as a stain on a top-floor ceiling.
These are the patterns our roofers flag:
- Granule loss leaves bald asphalt patches, a sure sign of end-of-life wear.
- Curled, buckled, cracked, or missing shingles let wind-driven rain peel the course back.
- Bruised or dented shingles after hail read as gray marks, not holes.
- Alligatoring, chalking, and blistering on old felt mean the surface has oxidized.
- Corroded nails, rusted screws, dried mastic, and cracking caulk at the flashing bead.
- Drip stains, mold near the ridge, and a sagging roofline over the eave.
- Ponding water and UV degradation on low-slope sections behind a parapet.
Newark Conditions: Ice Dams, Freeze-Thaw, and Storm Damage
Newark sits in a classic ice dam climate. Snow melts on a warm ridge, refreezes at the cold eave, and backs meltwater under the shingles into ceilings near top-floor exterior walls.
The city averages roughly 26 to 29 inches of snowfall a season, and one nor'easter can drop a foot in a night.
Freeze-thaw cycles work on the fascia, soffit, gutter, and downspout line until water finds the deck. Ice dams show up most in Forest Hill, Weequahic, and the Ironbound, off I-78 and along the Route 21 corridor.
Newark also takes 46 to 50 inches of precipitation in a normal year, and Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 pushed coastal flooding into eastern Essex County.
What we install to fight it:
- Ice-and-water shield across the eave and valley, the two places ice dam water attacks first.
- Snow guards and a snow anchor above a doorway, porch roof, or awning, so snow releases in pieces.
- Step flashing and counter-flashing at sidewalls, chimney flashing at the masonry, and apron flashing at the head wall.
- A correctly pitched gutter and a clear downspout, because a blocked one backs water into the soffit.
Timelines, Cost Drivers, and What We Won't Oversell
Most single-family tear-offs run one to two days once the dumpster lands, weather willing. A steep mansard or gambrel section, a dormer, or a skylight adds a day.
What moves the number:
- Square count, since material is priced per roofing square rather than per house.
- Pitch and access, because a steep hip or gable with a deep overhang means scaffold, ladder work, and a safety harness.
- Layers to remove, since a recover or overlay is only sometimes allowed by building code.
- Decking condition, with plywood and OSB replacement quoted per sheet once we see the substrate.
- Penetrations, where a chimney, skylight, dormer, parapet, scupper, or coping adds detail flashing work.
- Ventilation, where a ridge vent, soffit vent, attic fan, or added insulation keeps the attic dry and the shingles cooler.
Sometimes a roof only needs a repair, and we will tell you so. A resealed flashing bead, a new pipe boot, or a patch over a torn shingle costs far less than a replacement.
Every job starts with a written, line-item roof estimate and an inspection report you can read. Call 8778540330. We are licensed and insured, and every roofing contractor on our crew works under a written workmanship warranty.
