Fanwood, Union County
Roofing in Fanwood, a Small Borough With a Short Inspection Day
Roofing, siding and gutters in Fanwood, Union County. A small borough with a three hour inspection window, and how we work around it. Free estimates.
Three hours a day, and why that changes how a job is planned
Fanwood is about one and a quarter square miles, which makes it one of the smallest boroughs in Union County, and the construction office is sized to match. That is not a criticism. It does mean a job here is planned around a narrower window than in a large township.
The borough offices are at 75 N. Martine Avenue. The construction office is on 908-322-5244 extension 129, and the main borough number is 908-322-8236. Regular hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm. The building inspector inspects Monday to Friday between 10:00am and 1:00pm, which is a three hour window.
Two practical consequences. A permitted job wants its inspection booked before the crew needs it rather than on the morning, and a stage that misses the window waits until tomorrow. The borough also offers evening hours at the construction office by appointment, which is genuinely useful if you work daytime and need to speak to somebody yourself. Checked August 2026, and the borough is the authority.
We do three things to the outside of a house: the roof, the siding and the gutters. Doing them together means one crew, one schedule and one company answerable for the whole exterior instead of three companies blaming each other.
Do you need a permit to re-roof in Fanwood?
Under New Jersey's construction code, replacing the roof covering on a detached one or two family home is treated as ordinary maintenance, which means no construction permit is required. That changes the moment sheathing, rafters or anything structural gets replaced. Then it is no longer ordinary maintenance and a permit is required.
If your job stays on the ordinary maintenance side of that line, none of the scheduling above applies to you at all, and most straightforward re-roofs do. We pull permits ourselves on the ones that need them.
Older housing on small lots, and what the neighbours have to do with it
Fanwood grew up around its railway station and a good deal of the housing reflects that: older stock, close together, on lots that do not leave much room between one house and the next.
Tight lots change a roofing job in ways that have nothing to do with the roof. There may not be a place to put the dumpster that does not involve somebody else's kerb. There may not be room to drop tear-off on your own side of the fence. Ladder placement on the side elevation can mean standing in a neighbour's flower bed.
None of that is a reason to avoid the job, and all of it is a reason to sort it out before the truck arrives rather than while it is blocking the street. When we quote a house on a narrow lot here we walk the access and tell you exactly where everything is going to sit on the day.
Mature trees and gutter sizing
The older streets carry mature trees that are considerably taller than the houses under them. A gutter on a house like that is handling roof water and a steady load of organic debris at the same time, all year, not just in October.
Where a run of gutter clogs repeatedly at the same point, the cause is usually one of three things: the run is out of level, the downspout is undersized for the area of roof draining into it, or a valley is dumping the water from two planes into one short section. Cleaning it out again fixes none of those, which is why the same corner keeps overflowing every autumn.
Questions Fanwood homeowners ask us
What are the inspection hours in Fanwood?
The building inspector inspects Monday to Friday between 10:00am and 1:00pm. The construction office is at 75 N. Martine Avenue on 908-322-5244 extension 129.
Can I speak to the construction office outside work hours?
The borough offers evening hours at the construction office by appointment. That is worth using if you would rather ask the codes official yourself than take a contractor's word for it.
Do I need a permit to replace my roof?
Usually not for a detached one or two family house where only the covering changes. If the sheathing comes off, yes.
Where will the dumpster go on a narrow lot?
We agree that with you before the day, and if it has to sit on the street we tell you in advance rather than surprising you and your neighbours with it.
Can you do the roof and the gutters in the same visit?
Yes, and on a house under big trees it is the right order, because gutter sizing is a decision about the roof above it rather than a separate purchase.
Two neighbours we also cover
Scotch Plains wraps around you and Westfield is just east. Both have their own page.
Book an estimate and somebody comes out, gets on the roof, and writes down what is actually up there. You get the price in writing before you decide anything, and the visit costs you nothing either way.
A&J Pro Roofers, 1163 Inman Ave Ste 101, Edison NJ 08820. Call (908) 432-7081.