Roofing in Middlesex Borough NJ: The Borough, Not the County

This is worth saying out loud first, because it changes what you find when you search. Middlesex is a small borough in the north west corner of Middlesex County. The county carries the same name and is enormous. Type roofer in Middlesex into Google and most of what comes back is aimed at the county, at towns twenty miles from your street.

The borough itself is the place with the 08846 ZIP code. The Raritan River runs along its southern edge, Piscataway is next door to the east, Dunellen sits to the north, and Bound Brook and Green Brook are just over the line in Somerset County.

Two of those neighbours already have their own page here, because A&J has done real work in them: Piscataway next door and Bridgewater across the river. That is not a coincidence. Most of what A&J does in this corner of the county arrives by one neighbour telling another.

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.

Our yard is at 1163 Inman Ave in Edison. Middlesex Borough sits roughly seven miles from it in a straight line, and in practice that is a drive of about twenty minutes, usually out along Stelton Road and across on Route 28, longer at school run time.

The reason that matters is not the estimate visit. It is everything after. A job that needs one more bundle of shingles, one more length of drip edge, or a second look at a leak after the first heavy rain is a short run from the yard rather than a scheduling problem. When we give you an arrival window we are working from your address, not from the borough.

Middlesex filled in mostly after the Second World War, the same story as the rest of this corridor, so the housing stock is dominated by capes, ranches and split levels from the 1950s and 1960s, with older houses nearer the Bound Brook end and newer infill scattered through.

Three things follow from that, and they are the three things we look at before we quote.

The pitches are shallow. A ranch or a split level is drawn much flatter than a 1920s colonial. Shallow is perfectly fine until somebody installs a product the slope was never steep enough for. Below a certain pitch, asphalt shingles are the wrong covering and a membrane is the right one.

Ventilation was not a priority when these houses went up. An underventilated attic bakes the shingles from underneath in July and grows condensation in January, and both of those take years off a roof you paid for. Ridge vent added while the roof is already open costs very little next to doing the job twice.

Capes are the hard one. The sloped upstairs ceiling leaves almost no room at the eave for insulation and moving air at the same time. If the bedrooms upstairs are unbearable in August and you get ice sitting at the gutter in January, that is the cause, and a better shingle does not fix it.

The southern edge of Middlesex Borough runs along the Raritan River. If your house is down on that side, water is a bigger part of the conversation than it is three streets up: where the gutters put it, whether the downspouts carry it away from the foundation or dump it beside the wall, and whether the grade takes it anywhere at all.

We do gutters as well as roofs, which is the only reason we can answer that question properly instead of pointing at somebody else's work.

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.

In Middlesex Borough that call belongs to the borough's own construction office, not to the county and not to us. We pull the permit when one is needed and we do not guess on your behalf. Rules and fees change, so the borough is always the authority on your job.

Do you mean Middlesex Borough or Middlesex County?

The borough. It is the small municipality with the 08846 ZIP code, sitting between Piscataway, Dunellen and the Raritan River. The county carries the same name and covers everything from here down to Raritan Bay, which is why a plain search for a roofer in Middlesex returns so many companies nowhere near your street.

How far is your yard from Middlesex Borough?

Our yard is at 1163 Inman Ave in Edison, about seven miles away in a straight line and roughly twenty minutes of driving, usually out Stelton Road and across on Route 28. Close enough that coming back for a second look is a short run, not a favour.

Do I need a permit to replace my roof in Middlesex?

Usually not, if it is a detached one or two family house and only the roof covering is being replaced. New Jersey treats that as ordinary maintenance. The moment sheathing or framing has to come off it is no longer maintenance and a permit is required. The borough construction office decides, and we pull it when it is needed.

My house is a cape. Does that change anything?

It does. Capes are common here and they are the hardest of the post-war shapes to get right, because the sloped ceiling leaves little room at the eave for both insulation and airflow. Hot upstairs rooms in summer and ice at the gutter line in winter are the symptom, and the fix is ventilation, not a more expensive shingle.

Do you do gutters too, or only the roof?

Both, plus siding. On the streets nearest the river that matters more than usual, because where the water goes after it leaves the roof is half the problem.

Piscataway is directly east of you and Bridgewater is across the river to the west. Both have their own page, and every town we work in is listed in one place.

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 Professional Services, 1163 Inman Ave Ste 101, Edison NJ 08820. Call (908) 432-7081.