Westfield Roofing: Old Houses, Deep Eaves and a Half-Day Inspection Window

The Westfield Building Department publishes its inspection hours, and that department runs inspections Monday to Friday, 7:30 to 1:00. That is a half day, every day, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you plan a roof here.

Why it matters. On the jobs that do need a permit, the inspection is not something that happens whenever you are ready. It happens in that window or it happens tomorrow. A crew that finishes structural work at two in the afternoon has just lost a day. So on Westfield jobs we plan the work that needs to be looked at to be ready in the morning, not at the end of the day.

The department is at 959 North Ave W. The main number is 908-789-4125 and inspections are booked on 908-789-4070 or at construction@westfieldnj.gov. They are the authority on your job, not this page. Checked August 2026.

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.

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.

Westfield grew hard in the first third of the twentieth century, and it still shows. Westfield Gardens, for one, was laid out and built from around 1909 into the 1940s, with Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor and Prairie School houses standing on Mountain Avenue and Highland Avenue.

For a roofer that era means a few very specific things.

It means steeper pitches than a post-war house, because that is how these styles were drawn. Steep is good for shedding water and slower and more expensive to work on safely.

It means more roof planes on the same footprint. Dormers, gables meeting at odd angles, a bay with its own little roof. Every one of those junctions is a flashing detail, and flashing is where roofs fail long before the shingle field does.

And it means the house has almost certainly been re-roofed before, possibly more than once, by somebody whose work you have never seen. A large part of what we do on a Westfield estimate is working out what is already up there before we price what goes on next.

An ice dam is not a snow problem, it is a heat problem. Warm air escapes from the living space into the attic, the underside of the roof warms up, and snow on the main slope melts. That meltwater runs down the roof until it reaches the part that hangs out past the walls, which has cold air underneath it and no heat at all. There it refreezes. Do that for a few days and you have a ridge of ice sitting at the edge of the roof with liquid water pooling behind it, pushing back up under the shingles.

Houses of the Tudor and Colonial Revival era tend to have generous overhangs, which is exactly the part of the roof that stays coldest. A deeper overhang gives the water a longer cold run to freeze on.

Two things actually fix it, and neither is a heated cable. The first is a waterproof membrane run up from the eave far enough that even if water backs up, it is backing up over something sealed rather than over shingle laps. The second is attic insulation and ventilation, so the roof deck stays cold and the snow never melts in the first place. When we quote a re-roof on an older Westfield house we look in the attic, because the roof is only half the answer.

If your house is from that period and has never been fully stripped, what is under the current roof may not be what you expect. Slate and cedar shake were both normal here when these houses were built.

Two things follow. Slate is heavy and cedar is not, so a roof framed for slate and a roof framed for cedar are not the same structure, and neither of them was framed with the assumption that somebody would later lay a second layer of asphalt over the top. Second, when a previous contractor covered rather than stripped, nobody since has actually seen the deck. Everything underneath is a guess until the roof comes off.

We strip to the deck. It costs more in disposal and it is the only way anyone can honestly tell you what condition the plywood or the plank sheathing is in.

Westfield has twenty six individually designated historic landmarks, and one locally designated historic district, which is Kimball Avenue. That is the position as of February 2025, published by the town's own Historic Preservation Commission.

It is a much lighter touch than some Union County towns, but if your address is the one that is designated, it matters a great deal to you and to nobody else on your street. Check your own address against the commission's list before you commit to a material or a colour. We are happy to wait for that answer, and we would rather wait than have you take a roof off twice.

When can the inspector actually come?

The Westfield Building Department on North Ave W runs inspections Monday to Friday from 7:30 to 1:00. It is a morning-only window, so on any job that needs an inspection we plan to be ready in the morning.

My house has slate. Can you just put shingles over it?

We would not, and on most houses we would advise against anyone who offers to. Nobody can tell you what condition the sheathing is in with a covered roof, and slate roofs sit on structures that were designed around slate. Stripping it costs more up front and it is the only way you get an honest answer about the deck.

Do I need a permit to re-roof in Westfield?

For a detached one or two family house where only the roof covering is being replaced, no. If the sheathing or the framing is being touched, yes. The Building Department decides on your job, and we pull the permit when one is needed.

What can I do about ice dams without replacing the whole roof?

Often quite a lot. Attic insulation and ventilation are the real fix, and they are cheaper than a roof. We will tell you if that is your problem, even though it is not the bigger job.

How far away are you?

About sixteen miles from our Edison office, roughly thirty minutes.

Plainfield is a short run west of you and Edison sits south of both. Each has its 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.