Roof Replacement in Richwood, NJ: A Full Tear-Off, Step by Step

Like a lot of Richwood, this home sits in one of the developments that went up off the Route 322 and Route 55 corridors in the early 2000s. That puts its original architectural shingles at roughly two decades old — right in the window where you start seeing granule loss in the gutters, shingles lifting at the edges, and the first slow leaks around the chimney and valleys. The homeowner had patched a couple of spots; the roof was telling them it was time.

This is the single most common roofing scenario we see in Richwood and across Harrison Township: a well-built 2000s-era colonial on its first roof, reaching the end of that roof's service life at the same time as half the street. None of it was an emergency — but waiting for the first interior leak is how a roof job turns into a roof-plus-drywall-plus-insulation job.

New Jersey code lets you put a second layer of shingles over an existing one, and plenty of contractors will sell that because it is faster and cheaper. We almost always advise against it, and this job is a good example of why.

You cannot inspect or repair the wood deck under a roof-over — you are nailing a new roof to whatever condition the old sheathing is in, including any soft or water-damaged spots. A second layer also adds weight, traps heat against the new shingles (shortening their life), and never lies as flat as shingles installed on a clean deck. A full tear-off costs more up front, but it is the only way to deliver a roof that actually performs for its full warranty period. On this Richwood home we stripped down to bare deck so we could see and fix everything underneath.

Before a single shingle comes off, we tarp the ground — lawn, landscaping, walkways, and AC condenser — so old shingles, debris, and nails land on cover, not in the yard. The tear-off itself is the messy part of any reroof, and how a crew handles it tells you a lot. We pull old shingles, underlayment, and flashing down to the wood deck, keep the debris moving into the dumpster, and run a magnet sweep of the property at the end of the day to pull stray nails out of the grass and driveway.

With the roof stripped, we walk and probe the entire deck. Sheathing that is delaminated, spongy, or water-stained gets cut out and replaced with new plywood before anything else goes down — and we document every sheet we replace with photos so the homeowner sees exactly what they paid for. Failed decking is the number-one hidden cost on any roof replacement, and it is also the number-one reason not to roof over an old roof: a roof-over hides exactly the damage that most needs fixing.

On this job we re-sheathed the sections that had taken on water over the years, then snapped chalk lines across the new decking. Those lines keep every shingle course and every fastener straight and to the manufacturer's spec — the kind of prep that is invisible on the finished roof but is the difference between a roof that lies flat for decades and one that telegraphs every wave in the deck.

Over the clean, chalk-lined deck we installed Atlas synthetic underlayment — a tougher, more water-resistant, and safer-to-walk layer than old felt paper, and one that will not blow off in a storm before the shingles go on. In the leak-prone areas (eaves and valleys) self-adhered ice-and-water membrane goes down first.

Then the shingles, set with a coil nailer to the manufacturer's nailing line and a six-nail high-wind pattern. That extra pair of nails per shingle is what holds a roof together through the summer thunderstorm gusts and the occasional tropical remnant that South Jersey gets — and it is what keeps the wind-warranty valid. A shingle is only as good as the fasteners and the deck under it.

Every place the roof meets something — a chimney, a wall, a vent — is a place water wants to get in, and chimneys are the worst offender. On this home we rebuilt and sealed the flashing at the chimney bases rather than reusing the old, lifting metal. Reusing old flashing on a new roof is one of the most common shortcuts in the trade, and it is why so many 'new' roofs start leaking at the chimney within a year or two. Doing it right during the reroof — not chasing the leak later — is what keeps the surrounding shingles and decking dry.

The finished product is a charcoal architectural-shingle roof with tight, even courses, clean hip and ridge lines, watertight valleys, and properly flashed chimneys — registered for the manufacturer warranty and backed by our lifetime workmanship coverage. From the street it just looks like a sharp new roof. The value is in everything underneath that you cannot see from the curb: the new decking, the underlayment, the nailing pattern, and the flashing.

If you are in Richwood, Mullica Hill, or anywhere in Gloucester County and your 2000s-era roof is showing its age, that is the standard to hold any contractor to. Ask whether they tear off or roof over, whether they replace failed decking (and document it), what underlayment and nailing pattern they use, and whether they rebuild the chimney flashing. Our inspection and quote are free — and we will tell you honestly whether you need a full replacement yet or have a few good years left.