Brick Roofing has spent more than 20 years on roofing in Point Pleasant, and a lot of the work here starts with a question most estimates skip: has the house been lifted, or is a lift being planned? A roof that once sat a single story off the yard may now ride on a new foundation. The plan for tearing it off and laying a new one has to start from the height it sits at today.
We look before we price. On a leak call that means the attic as well as the shingles, so the water is traced to the spot where it actually gets in. On an older roof it means a straight answer about whether a repair will hold before anyone brings up replacement.
When replacement is the right call, the written scope breaks out tear-off, decking, underlayment, flashing, ventilation and gutters as separate lines. You can lay our estimate beside anyone else’s and compare item by item. It also makes plain what changes when the roof being replaced is higher than it used to be.
How the 2012 Surge Reached Point Pleasant
Water From the Bay, Not Wind From the Ocean
Hurricane Sandy did its damage in Point Pleasant through tidal surge. Patch reported in January 2013 that the flooding, which it described as “not wave and wind destruction,” reached 1,000 homes in the borough. The water came in from the bay side rather than over a beach, and that distinction still shapes how owners think about their houses.
A flooded house is a foundation and interior problem first. The roof above it may have come through the storm with little to show for it. That is why the borough’s answer pointed owners toward lifting the house they already had rather than rebuilding it from the ground up.
The New Map and the V Zone
The same report quoted Mayor William Schroeder saying 2,500 homes were in flood zones on FEMA’s new map. Bay-side sections such as Bay Head Shores were mapped in the V zone, the designation for areas expected to take wave action on top of rising water. For an owner, that map line shapes how high a lifted house is built to sit.
We keep the map in mind on the roof as well. A V-zone address on the bay is also an address in salt air, and the fasteners, drip edge and flashing we choose for it are picked for that exposure. The metal is named in the estimate, so stainless steel or hot-dipped galvanized is a written choice you can check rather than an assumption.
The Water Around the Borough
Point Pleasant covers 4.17 square miles, and about 16 percent of that is water. The Manasquan River forms the northern boundary and Beaver Dam Creek the southern one. The Point Pleasant Canal, completed in 1925, divides the borough in half, which is a lot of shoreline for a town this size.
The National Weather Service places the borough in forecast zone NJZ026, Coastal Ocean, issued from its Mount Holly office. That is a forecast zone, not a climate record. It is still the zone whose warnings we watch when a crew is scheduled for several days on an exposed, raised roof.
Looking for roofing closer to Leisure Village East? See Roofing Services in Leisure Village East.
Raising a House One to Two Feet Above the FEMA Elevation
Raising Without a Variance
Early in 2013 the borough passed an ordinance that let residents raise homes without a variance. That took one approval out of the path to lifting a house on the lot where it already stood. The house goes up on a new foundation, and the frame above it, roof included, goes up with it.
We want to be clear about our part. House raising is structural work done by others, and it falls outside the ordinary-maintenance treatment New Jersey gives roof coverings. Our work starts once the house is up, or earlier when an owner planning a lift wants the roof sequenced around it.
What the Mayor Described in November 2013
By November 2013 the council was amending its elevation ordinance to align with new state specifications. Mayor Schroeder put the borough’s position this way: “We are recommending two feet above the FEMA recommendation, but allowing for one foot.” That was his description of a pending amendment, and we have not read the adopted text, so we never quote a required figure to an owner.
What the quote does show is the range the borough was discussing: one to two feet above the FEMA elevation for a given lot. Your elevation certificate and the borough are the sources for your own house. Our job is to plan the roof for whatever height it ended up at.
Elevators, Stair Runs and Access
The same November report described builders choosing elevators over the stair runs that new rules required for raised homes, one calling it “better than creating nine feet of steps.” Exterior stairs above certain heights also need landings. Those are details of the house rather than the roof, but they decide how we reach it.
A stair run with landings, a deck built up to the new floor level, or an elevator against one wall all change where a ladder can stand and where a lift can reach. We walk the property before the job is scheduled. Ladder and lift access, staging and debris control are written into the scope before the crew pulls up.
A Postwar House on a New Foundation, With Its Old Roof
The Housing Under the Lift
Most of Point Pleasant is single-family detached housing: 6,933 of 8,742 units, or 79.3 percent, in the Census Bureau’s 2024 five-year American Community Survey. Another figure from the same survey counts 3,454 units, 39.5 percent, built between 1950 and 1969. Those are the decades when the borough grew from 4,009 residents to 15,968.
We would not claim every raised house here is a postwar one, but the numbers point that way. A house from those decades that went up on a new foundation after 2012 is likely to still carry the roof it had before the lift. That roof is now older, and it is higher than it was when it went on.
What Changes When the Roof Goes Up
Lifting a house does not replace its roof, and nothing about a lift by itself calls for a new one. What it changes is the job when the time comes. The eaves are farther from the ground, the staging has to be taller, and every bundle of shingles and every load of tear-off travels farther.
We also expect a lifted roof to see more exposure than it did at its old height, though that is our judgment rather than a measured figure. It is one reason we match the shingle’s wind rating to the design wind speed for your exact address under DCA Bulletin 19-1. A single guess for the whole borough is not good enough on a roof that now stands taller.
Decking, Layers and Fasteners
A roof that has been carried up on a lift can hide trouble in the decking. When the old covering comes off, any damaged sheets are photographed and shown to you before they are replaced. The price per sheet is already set in the contract, so there is no negotiating on the roof.
If the house already carries two or more layers, New Jersey’s rehabilitation subcode calls for a tear-off rather than another layer on top. We price that tear-off as its own line. On a bay-side address we pair the new roof with drip edge at the eaves and rakes, ASTM D1970 ice and water barrier, and fasteners chosen for salt air.
Planning a Re-Roof After the Lift
Permits, Paperwork and the Contract
Replacing the roof covering on a detached one- or two-family house is ordinary maintenance under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7 and needs no permit. The lift is a different matter, because work affecting structure is excluded from that exemption. Keeping the two jobs separate on paper shows you which approvals belong to which contractor.
Our contracts are written to New Jersey’s home improvement rules, including the three-business-day cancellation right on contracts over $500. If the lift and the re-roof are happening in the same year, we build our dates around the house work. The elevation questions stay with the people who own them.
Seasonal Houses and Owners Who Are Away
About 571 homes in the borough, 6.5 percent of the housing stock, are held for seasonal or occasional use. When the owner is somewhere else, we can inspect and photograph the roof and send the report the same day. For a house that sits empty through the off-season, that report is often the first word of a problem.
Storm damage is handled the same way. We photograph it and write it up for your own claim, and we will meet the insurance adjuster on site if you ask. The paperwork stays yours, and the photos show the roof as it stood before anything was touched.
Keeping the Site Clean at Height
Debris falls farther from a raised roof and can scatter wider, across a deck, a stair run or the open space under the house. Our crews clean the yard, driveway and gutters at the end of every work day. A magnet sweep picks up roofing nails before anyone walks out to the car.
If solar panels sit on the roof, their removal and reinstall go into the schedule from the start. On a raised house that means one more trade working at height. It is far easier to plan for that than to discover it on the morning the tear-off begins.
- 20+ Years in Roofing
- Attic and Roof Leak Checks
- Line-Item Written Scopes
