Why an Upper Montclair roof is its own kind of job
The housing stock here skews old and elaborate. Steep pitches, slate and tile that need specialty handling, copper flashing and built-in gutters, dormers stacked over bays, and rooflines that were drawn by architects rather than spec books. A roof like that punishes shortcuts. A flashing detail that a tract crew would caulk over is a detail that, done wrong, will track water down a plaster wall in a way you will not notice for two seasons.
We bid these homes the way they ask to be bid, by reading the whole roof first. That means walking the valleys, checking how the old flashing was woven, and understanding which parts of the assembly are original and which were patched by someone in a hurry. The estimate that comes out of that read is one you can trust, because it is built on what the roof actually is rather than on a square-footage shortcut.