Roof Repair & Replacement in Raritan, NJ

Hillsborough Roofing repairs and replaces roofs, and repairs and replaces siding, on the close-set streets of Raritan, NJ. The borough packs its housing into just over two square miles between the Raritan River and the Route 202 and 206 corridors, which makes it one of the denser places we work in Somerset County. Access, staging, and the neighbor's wall three feet away are part of every job.

A mill town built dense and still built dense

Raritan was a working river town, with the Raritan Woolen Mills running from 1846 and employing four hundred people at its height. The housing around the mills is what you would expect: two-family frame houses, narrow single-family homes on small lots, porches on the street side. Density runs near four thousand people per square mile, and the borough hit its highest population ever in 2020.

Two-family houses concentrate the problems. More plumbing means more vent stacks and more pipe boots to crack. More heating means more attic heat and more ice damming at the eaves. Rental blocks often carry a roof patched by whoever was cheapest. All of it is readable from up there.

Working on lots this tight, next to Route 202 and 206

Route 202 runs east to west through the borough and 206 follows the Somerville line, the two meeting at the Somerville Circle. Plenty of Raritan streets are narrow, parked solid, and shared with a neighbor at close range. A roof job here is as much a logistics problem as a roofing one: where the truck sits, where the dumpster goes, and which side the tear-off comes down.

Close spacing changes the work itself. Two roofs draining into the same gap need gutters that carry it, or the ground between stays wet and the sill and bottom siding course pay for it. Where houses nearly touch, we handle the shared-side valleys, step flashing, and eave return with care no one sees from the street and everyone feels in a heavy rain.

Vent stacks and boots on a two-family

Four to six penetrations on one small roof is normal here, and the rubber collars all age at the same rate. Replacing them as a set on an otherwise sound roof is one of the best repairs we do in the borough.

Ice dams at the eave in a hard winter

Warm attic, cold gutter, snow melting and refreezing at the edge. Ice and water shield along the eaves plus corrected soffit intake fix the cause. Heat cable only manages the symptom.

Porch roofs facing the street

The front porch roof is usually shallow, older than the main roof, and the first thing an inspector looks at. It needs its own flashing into the wall above and often its own membrane.

Siding on the three-foot side

The wall you cannot walk past is the one nobody inspects. Loose panels, missing J-channel, and rot behind the siding start there. We check it with a ladder, not from the corner.

Duke Island Park, the river, and the trees along it

The river edge near Duke Island Park brings both mature trees and open exposure. Under the canopy you get leaf load in the gutters and shaded slopes that stay damp. Where a roofline faces open ground along the river you get wind with no windbreak, lifting tabs and finding any sealant strip that never bonded.

So we quote repair and replacement on their own merits rather than defaulting to one. A wind-lifted section over a sound field is a repair. A roof whose sealant strips have released across two slopes and whose flashing has been tarred three times is saying something else.

Before we quote a Raritan roof

• Every vent stack, pipe boot, and penetration counted, since two-family roofs carry more
• Eave condition, any history of ice damming, and what the attic intake looks like
• Shared-side valleys, step flashing, and eave returns on the tight property line
• Gutter and downspout capacity where two houses drain into the same narrow gap
• The front porch roof as its own system, slope and flashing into the wall
• How many previous patches and tar repairs the flashings have taken
• Staging on a narrow street: truck position, dumpster placement, neighbors clear

Roofing and siding work we do in Raritan

• Roof Repair
• Roof Replacement
• Roof Leak Repair
• Emergency Roof Repair
• Storm & Hail Damage Repair
• Solar Panel Removal & Reinstall
• Skylight Replacement
• Roof Inspection
• Gutters, Soffit & Fascia
• Flat Roof Repair
• Siding Installation
• Vinyl Siding
• James Hardie Siding
• Siding Repair

Nearby towns

Bridgewater, Somerville, Montgomery, Branchburg, Manville, Belle Mead, Neshanic Station, and Hillsborough itself.