Tearing Off to the Deck — and What's Usually Under a Garfield Roof
A genuine replacement begins by removing every layer down to the bare sheathing — the asphalt field, the underlayment, and any older shake-to-asphalt conversion or overlay hiding beneath it. We do not roof over an existing roof in Garfield, and on this town's housing that matters more than usual: a large share of the older homes near the river and along Outwater Lane were re-covered when their original cedar shakes were swapped to asphalt 30 to 40 years ago, then re-covered again, so a third layer on top would only bury two failing roofs instead of one. The only way to see the wood that actually keeps water out is to strip everything off it.
Once the deck is open, we walk every board. On the older river-side and Outwater Lane homes we often find plank decking — individual boards with gaps between them — and because those roofs sat in the lower Passaic basin through decades of weather, including the heavy water this corridor saw in storms like Irene and Ida, the planks around chimneys, valleys, and old flashing are frequently soft, delaminated, or rotted. On the post-war ranches and split-levels it's usually plywood or OSB, which tends to fail where an old porch roof or a low-slope addition let water track back into the sheathing. We replace any compromised board before a single new layer goes down, because no shingle survives long over rotten wood.
Tear-off is also the moment a Garfield roof tells the truth. The brick-veneer two-families here are notorious for failed chimney step-flashing, and you usually can't confirm how bad it is until the old roofing is off and the masonry transition is exposed. Pre-1980 homes are a separate flag: some carry asbestos shingles, and we do not remove asbestos ourselves — if we find it, we stop and coordinate with a licensed abatement firm before any roofing work continues. We photograph everything we uncover so the new system gets detailed correctly the first time. If a leak shows up before you're ready to commit to a full tear-off, our Roof Repair & Leak Repair in Garfield crew can stabilize it in the meantime.
The Modern Roof System We Rebuild, Layer by Layer
A finished roof is an assembly, not a stack of shingles, and we rebuild it in order once the Garfield deck is sound. We start at the eaves and in the valleys with a self-adhering ice-and-water shield — the membrane that guards the most leak-prone areas against wind-driven rain and the ice dams that form during New Jersey freeze-thaw winters. Over the remaining field goes synthetic underlayment, lighter and far more tear-resistant than the old felt paper, as a continuous secondary water barrier across the whole deck.
Then the metal, which on Garfield's housing is usually where the last roof actually gave out. New drip edge runs the eaves and rakes, and fresh step-flashing and counter-flashing go in at every wall and chimney — especially critical on the brick-veneer two-families where the original step-flashing is the recurring failure point. We don't reuse tired metal to save an hour. On top of that comes the shingle assembly proper: a starter strip along the perimeter for wind grip, the architectural shingle field, and a matching ridge cap. Tying it all together is balanced ventilation — intake low at the eaves or soffits, exhaust high at the ridge — so the attic breathes, summer heat clears out, and winter moisture doesn't rot the brand-new deck from underneath.
Ventilation deserves extra attention on this town's compact homes. Many Garfield houses had attics finished, dormers added, or porch and addition roofs grafted on over the years, and the venting almost never kept up. Establishing a proper intake-and-exhaust path during the replacement is what actually protects the new roof's lifespan. Because we're certified with GAF, Owens Corning, and CertainTeed, installing the full system to each manufacturer's spec is also what lets us register the enhanced system warranties most one-off Garfield roofers can't offer, on top of our own 10-year transferable workmanship warranty in writing.
Material Choices That Fit Garfield's Streets
For the great majority of pitched Garfield roofs, an architectural asphalt shingle is the workhorse and the smartest value — lines like GAF Timberline HDZ, Owens Corning Duration, and CertainTeed Landmark. They're dimensional, wind-rated, and come in colors that flatter everything from a plain split-level near Plauderville station to an older two-family along the River Drive corridor. The post-WWII ranches and split-levels are especially strong upgrade candidates: simple, clean rooflines where a heavier architectural shingle reads as a real step up from the flat three-tab look those streets were originally built with.
Not every roof in this city is a shingle roof, though, and pretending otherwise is how leaks start. Garfield is renter-heavy and packed with two- and three-family homes, and a meaningful share of them — along with older porch roofs and rear additions — are flat or low-slope. Those surfaces need a welded-seam membrane such as TPO, EPDM rubber, or modified bitumen, built and flashed completely differently from a shingle field. Plenty of homes here are hybrids: a pitched main roof in shingles with a low-slope section behind or below it. We replace both in a single project and detail the tie-in seam between them properly rather than leaving it as the weak point.
Whatever the material, the conversation has one goal — matching the system to your building, your roofline, and how long you plan to own the home. Several real factors drive where a Garfield replacement lands: the roof's size and pitch, how cut-up the roofline is, the number of valleys, chimneys, and penetrations, how much decking turns out to need replacing once we're on it, whether there's a low-slope section, the condition of the narrow-lot gutters that often need upsizing, and the shingle or membrane line you choose. That's exactly why we quote every replacement in writing, itemized, only after we've stood on the roof — never a number guessed from the curb.
What a Replacement Day Looks Like on a Narrow Garfield Lot
Most single-roof replacements on a Garfield home are a one-to-three-day job, weather permitting. The constraint here is space, not size — this is one of the more densely built municipalities in Bergen County, with more than 30,000 people packed into roughly two square miles, which means tight lots, shared or near-shared driveways, and street parking that fills early. The crew's first move is staging: where the dumpster can legally and safely sit, how to protect the house a few feet away as much as your own, and tarps over landscaping with plywood against the siding before anything comes off.
Then the tear-off runs in sections. The old roofing goes straight into the dumpster rather than piling on a lawn there's barely room for, the deck gets inspected and repaired the same day, and the system goes back on in order — membrane and underlayment, flashing and edge metal, starter, field shingles, ridge cap, and ventilation. We never strip more roof than we can dry-in, so the home is buttoned up watertight before the crew leaves each evening. On a Garfield block that discipline isn't optional: an exposed deck overnight in the lower Passaic basin is asking for trouble.
Cleanup on a tight lot is real cleanup, because the fallout doesn't just land on your property — it lands on the neighbor's car and the shared driveway too. We run a magnetic sweep across the yard, driveway, and sidewalk for nails, do a final debris check, and haul the dumpster off rather than letting it linger on a narrow street. Throughout, you're not chasing anyone: we confirm the schedule in writing, handle the dumpster and material delivery, and keep you posted on what we found and what we did.
Two-Families, Permits, and Knowing When It's Really a Replacement
Garfield's housing skews heavily toward two- and three-families, much of it tenant-occupied, so replacing those roofs is routine for us rather than an exception. The logistics differ from a detached single: shared-wall buildings where one roof plane drains onto the next, setbacks tight enough to dictate where materials and the dumpster sit, and tenants who are home during the day and need entrances and driveways kept clear. We schedule with all of that in mind and sequence the work so the building stays livable while we're on it.
The paperwork differs too. A straightforward like-for-like shingle re-roof on a detached one- or two-family home is generally treated as ordinary maintenance under New Jersey's construction code and usually needs no construction permit. The moment the scope grows, though — new decking or framing, added skylights or dormers, or any three-family, multi-family, or commercial roof — a permit does apply, and we confirm and pull whatever's required with Garfield's construction office before work starts. We'd rather sort that out up front than have it surface mid-job.
Finally, we'll tell you honestly when a full tear-off isn't actually what your roof needs. A roof that's reshaping rather than just wearing out — a new dormer, an addition adding roof area, a section that never carried a finished roof — is a different job, covered on our New Roof Installation in Garfield page, while an isolated failure is repair territory. Replacement is the right call when the field is at end of life across the whole roof, when a converted shake-to-asphalt roof has run out its asphalt lives, or when so many details are failing at once that fixing them one by one stops making sense.
See our full Roof Replacement service, or every roofing service we offer across Garfield, NJ.