How does an inspection establish the number of layers on a Cape or a split-level?

From the rake, where the stacked courses show at the edge, and from the attic, where the nail tips coming through the deck give the same count. On housing from the 1950s and 1960s a second layer is common and a third is not unheard of, and the number decides what the next job is allowed to be.

Do the knee-wall pockets get looked at?

They are the point. A Cape with finished rooms in the roof leaves closed pockets behind the knee walls where warm air meets the cold deck all winter, and that is where the moisture sits. An inspection that does not open the access panel has missed the room the house actually fails in.

How much freeze-thaw does a north Jersey roof see?

NOAA's records at Newark Liberty average roughly seventy-five nights at or below freezing a year over the last decade, with about thirty inches of snow — and a good share of those nights follow an afternoon above freezing. That back-and-forth, rather than a hard freeze, is what works the seams and the flashing, and the report should say where it shows.

Does the inspection include the low-slope section on a Newark or Jersey City house?

It has to, as a separate roof. The membrane on the rear section runs on its own clock, usually shorter than the shingle's, and the termination at the party wall is the detail most likely to be leaking. One report, two roofs, two ages.

What kind of finding actually fails an inspection on a house like this?

An unopened knee-wall pocket on a finished Cape, step flashing sealed over rather than woven into the courses, spaced plank decking left unaddressed, and a low-slope rear section with visible ponding. A roof can carry years of life in its field and still fail on one of these details, which is why a report built only from the ground misses the finding that matters.

Why do I keep getting calls about a free roof inspection?

Those calls are typically generated from an address list rather than from anything anyone has actually seen on your roof, and the volume tends to rise after any stretch of hard weather across north Jersey. A real inspection is one you scheduled yourself, and it produces a written report with photographs rather than a pitch delivered at the door.

Roof inspection

An inspection earns its cost when it answers a decision. In this region the decisions are specific: how many layers are up there, whether the deck under them is sound, and what is happening in an attic that has rooms in it and therefore cannot be looked at from a hatch.

When it earns its price

Before buying, above all. Roof condition is one of the largest numbers hiding in a house purchase here, and a general home inspection rarely establishes the layer count or looks properly at the flashing on a split-level. Before winter, on an aging covering: the freeze-thaw months find every loose edge and every tired sealant bead, and finding them in September costs less than finding them in February. And on any house where ice forms at the eaves each year, because that is a symptom worth diagnosing before it is worth roofing over.

What gets checked

On the roof: what the covering is and how many layers it appears to be; whether the shingle edges are still sealed; granule loss and the difference between slopes; every roof-to-wall junction and whether the flashing is layered metal or sealant doing the work; skylights and dormers, which fail before the field does; valleys and what is sitting in them; and the roof edge: fascia, soffit and gutter hardware, which in this climate is often the first timber to go.

Off the roof: the attic, where the real story usually is. Whether intake exists and is open rather than buried under insulation, staining or rust on the underside of the deck, and daylight at penetrations. On a finished Cape or a split-level, the accessible knee-wall pockets. And the paper: permit records for the property, which can date the last work and tell you whether it was a tear-off or a second layer.

What the report is good for

A written report turns impressions into decisions. For a buyer it puts a number on the largest hidden item in the purchase. For an owner it fixes the scope, so that three bidders price the same layer count, the same decking assumption and the same ventilation work, which is the only way a comparison between quotes means anything. And it puts the job in the right season: identified in spring, quoted properly, done in the warm months when the covering will actually seal.

Questions that come up before a north Jersey inspection

How does an inspection establish the number of layers on a Cape or a split-level?: From the rake, where the stacked courses show at the edge, and from the attic, where the nail tips coming through the deck give the same count. On housing from the 1950s and 1960s a second layer is common and a third is not unheard of, and the number decides what the next job is allowed to be.
Do the knee-wall pockets get looked at?: They are the point. A Cape with finished rooms in the roof leaves closed pockets behind the knee walls where warm air meets the cold deck all winter, and that is where the moisture sits. An inspection that does not open the access panel has missed the room the house actually fails in.
How much freeze-thaw does a north Jersey roof see?: NOAA's records at Newark Liberty average roughly seventy-five nights at or below freezing a year over the last decade, with about thirty inches of snow — and a good share of those nights follow an afternoon above freezing. That back-and-forth, rather than a hard freeze, is what works the seams and the flashing, and the report should say where it shows.
Does the inspection include the low-slope section on a Newark or Jersey City house?: It has to, as a separate roof. The membrane on the rear section runs on its own clock, usually shorter than the shingle's, and the termination at the party wall is the detail most likely to be leaking. One report, two roofs, two ages.
What kind of finding actually fails an inspection on a house like this?: An unopened knee-wall pocket on a finished Cape, step flashing sealed over rather than woven into the courses, spaced plank decking left unaddressed, and a low-slope rear section with visible ponding. A roof can carry years of life in its field and still fail on one of these details, which is why a report built only from the ground misses the finding that matters.
Why do I keep getting calls about a free roof inspection?: Those calls are typically generated from an address list rather than from anything anyone has actually seen on your roof, and the volume tends to rise after any stretch of hard weather across north Jersey. A real inspection is one you scheduled yourself, and it produces a written report with photographs rather than a pitch delivered at the door.

The trouble is usually one layer down. On these houses the roof you can see is often not the only one. Where the work actually happens on a roof.

Tap to enlarge

1 Ridge caps. Thin, exposed, and the first course to lift.
2 The field. The course you can see, over the underlayment you cannot.
3 Valleys. Leaf load mats where two slopes drain as one.
4 Flashing. Old masonry, and the wall an attached house shares.
5 Vent boots. The rubber cracks years before the shingles around it are done.
6 Eaves and ice dams. Where the melt runs out of warm roof and turns back into ice.

The rest of the work

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