How the business runs

A roofing business that hands you the test

This is a roofing business working West Orange and the Essex County townships next to it. The work is residential: replacement, repair, slate, flat roofing and gutters on detached and semi-detached housing, from the estate roofs on the First Mountain to the post-war stock out towards Pleasantdale.

It is organized around the question this market asks most. The search results for roofing here are dominated by how to check a contractor before signing anything. Rather than answer that with another page saying how trustworthy we are, this site prints the four things New Jersey actually makes checkable -- the vehicle marking, the registration number on the paper, the written contract over $500, and the three-day cancellation notice -- and invites you to apply them here first.

Roofing only -- no siding, windows or general contracting
No storm-damage paperwork of any kind
No doorstep prices and no same-day signatures
No price without walking the roof and the roof space

Timber rafters and a roof window seen from inside an attic — **On the roof**Survey before any price is given

How it runs

Four steps, no surprises

Free inspection, a written scope with the registration number on it, and three days to decide.

Call or message

Tell us the address, roughly when the roof went on if you know, and what made you call. Whether this started with a leak, a survey or somebody at the door changes what is worth looking at first, and the last of those three changes it most.

Survey, roof and roof space

Both together. The slope and the details that actually fail on the outside; on the inside the layer count, the deck type, old water tracks and daylight. On the mountain sections that survey also settles what the frame will carry, which is what decides whether natural slate is even an option.

Written scope, then the price

A document with the legal business name, the address and the registration number on it, the work described in plain language, and the three-day cancellation notice included without being asked for. Read it indoors. Nothing about it expires this evening.

The work, and the photographs

Materials confirmed before they arrive, the construction office dealt with where a permit is actually required, and a before-and-after set that is yours whatever you decide to do next.

Before you choose

Five things worth asking of every quote, including this one

If a quote fails the first two, the rest of it does not matter much.

Is there a registration number on the document

Not on a website footer -- on the quote you were handed. New Jersey requires it there, and its absence tells you something before you have read a single price.

Does it name a legal business and a street address

The regulation asks for the contractor's legal name and business address in the contract. Anything that resolves only to a mobile number is a quote you cannot follow up on if the work goes wrong.

Is the decking priced per sheet

Nobody knows how much deck has softened until the covering is off. A rate per sheet is an honest answer to that; a lump sum is a guess that will be revisited, usually upwards, once the roof is open.

Does it distinguish the covering from the details

Most of what fails on a roof is not the field -- it is the eaves, the valleys, the chimney abutment and the penetrations. A quote that prices only area has not priced the parts that leak.

Does it hand you the three days without being asked

The cancellation notice is a legal requirement, not a courtesy. A contractor who includes it unprompted is telling you they expect the quote to survive you thinking about it overnight.

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