Roofing Contractor in Paterson, NJ

Paterson’s Housing Stock and What It Means for Your Roof

Paterson is not a city of single-family houses. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2019-2023) counts 52,532 housing units in the city, and only about 17% of them are detached single-family homes. A full third (33%) sit in two-unit buildings and another 21% in three- and four-unit buildings, so more than half of all Paterson households live under a roof they share with at least one other household. That shapes everything from which rules apply to the job to how a leak above one apartment gets traced when the stain shows up in another.

The buildings are also old. About one housing unit in three was built in 1939 or earlier, roughly six in ten date from before 1960, and fewer than 5% have been built since 2010. Most of these roofs have been redone more than once, and many houses carry additions, enclosed porches and flat rear roofs that were tied in long after the main house went up. With about 74% of occupied homes rented, a lot of our Paterson customers are owner-landlords who need the work done right while tenants are living inside.

What we see on Paterson roofs

• Two- and three-family frame houses with a pitched main roof in front and a flat or low-slope roof over the rear rooms and porches.
• Older single-family homes around Eastside Park, where the city’s own design guidelines deal with slate and clay tile roofs.
• Mixed-use buildings with stores below and apartments above along commercial strips such as 21st Avenue in People’s Park, most of them with flat membrane roofs.

Roofing, Siding and Gutter Services in Paterson

Every job starts with a free inspection and a written estimate, and we photograph what we find so you can see the problem yourself. Here is what we handle across the city, with a page for each service:

• Roof repair in Paterson: leaks at flashing, chimneys, valleys and the joint between a pitched roof and a flat rear roof, plus storm damage documented with photos for your insurance claim.
• Roof replacement in Paterson: full tear-offs, decking repair, architectural asphalt shingles on pitched roofs and membrane systems on flat sections, with attic ventilation set up properly.
• Siding in Paterson: vinyl, fiber cement, engineered wood and aluminum siding, plus soffit and fascia repair.
• Gutters in Paterson: seamless aluminum gutters, gutter guards, copper and half-round systems, cleaning and repair.

We also repair skylights and chimney flashing and inspect chimneys as part of a roof inspection. If water is coming into your home right now, our emergency roof repair page for Paterson explains what to do while you wait for us.

Permits and Approvals for Paterson Roofing Work

New Jersey’s Uniform Construction Code treats the repair or replacement of roof covering on a detached one- or two-family dwelling as ordinary maintenance, which means no construction permit. That covers a large share of Paterson’s houses, but not all of them. Re-roofing a three- or four-family building (about one in five Paterson homes), a row house or twin attached to its neighbor, or a building with a store on the ground floor is permitted work. On any building, once rotted sheathing or rafters have to be replaced, the job affects the structure and needs a permit.

Paterson Neighborhoods We Cover

We work in all six wards. That includes Eastside and the Manor section east of 33rd Street; Riverside and Bunker Hill along the Passaic River; Sandy Hill and People’s Park; the hilly Northside above downtown; the Totowa section and Hillcrest west of downtown; Stoney Road near the Great Falls and Pennington Park; and Lakeview and South Paterson on the city’s south side.

Each part of the city wears a roof differently. Houses on the Northside hills take more wind. Blocks near the river deal with flooding that no roof or gutter can stop, though good drainage keeps roof water from making a wet basement worse. Tree-lined streets around Eastside Park fill valleys and gutters with leaves every fall. And the oldest blocks near downtown and the Great Falls hold some of the city’s most layered roofs, where an honest inspection matters more than a quick patch.

How to get started

1. Call us any time, day or night, and tell us the address and what you’re seeing.
2. We set up a free inspection, including access to tenant units if the leak shows up inside an apartment.
3. You get photos and a written estimate that says plainly whether the job is a repair, a replacement, or permitted work.

Paterson Roofing Questions

More Roofing Help in Paterson

Each of our Paterson service pages goes deeper: read about roof repair in Paterson, roof replacement in Paterson, siding installation and repair in Paterson and gutter installation and repair in Paterson.

For the bigger picture, see our roofing services across Passaic County and our roofing services in New Jersey. Working on a property nearby? We also cover our Clifton home base, roofing in Totowa, roofing in Woodland Park and roofing in Elmwood Park.

Want a ballpark before we visit? Try our roof cost calculator, or learn what happens during a roof inspection in New Jersey.