Brick Roofing brings more than 20 years of roofing in Toms River to houses whose biggest roof risk often stands in the yard rather than in the sky. A good share of our calls here start after wind, when a limb or a whole tree has come down on shingles, gutters or the framing beneath them. We handle routine repairs and full replacements too, but sudden damage is where we see the township most clearly.
Our first job on any call is to tell you what actually happened to the roof. That means walking the surface, then going into the attic to see where water, daylight or splintered wood shows up from inside. A dent in the shingles can hide a cracked rafter, and a clean-looking roof can still have a puncture that leaks every time it rains.
You get a straight answer on whether the roof can be repaired before anyone mentions replacement. When a full replacement does make sense, the written scope breaks the work into separate lines for tear-off, decking, underlayment, flashing, ventilation and gutters, so you can hold our number against any other estimate item by item.
What the April 2020 Storm Did in East Dover
Most roof damage in a township builds slowly, but some arrives in a single afternoon. On Tuesday, April 21, 2020, a fast-moving storm crossed the East Dover section of Toms River, and the neighborhoods near Bay Avenue took the worst of it. The reports from the next day read less like a weather story and more like a list of houses with trees inside them.
Trees Through Roofs Near Bay Avenue
CBS New York described block after block of downed trees and destroyed houses. On Barbara Lane, a pair of large trees fell on one house and two cars, damaging the roof. On Sharon Drive, the station reported that “a massive tree sliced through her roof,” and that house was one of several in the neighborhood deemed unlivable after the storm.
What stands out about those accounts is that the roofs were not peeled up by wind the way a shingle blow-off looks. They were crushed from above by trees that had stood beside the houses for years. That is a different kind of damage, and it calls for a different kind of inspection and repair than a missing tab or a lifted ridge cap.
Straight-Line Winds, Not a Tornado
The National Weather Service office in Mount Holly attributed the East Dover damage to straight-line winds tied to a strong cold front, not a tornado. Early information pointed toward a microburst. For a homeowner, the label matters less than the lesson: a storm does not need to rotate to drop a mature tree onto a house.
Straight-line winds can arrive with little warning and push in one direction across a whole neighborhood. Trees that have leaned the same way for decades, or that carry heavy crowns over a roofline, are the ones that give way. That is why we treat the trees around a Toms River house as part of the roof assessment rather than a separate question.
Looking for roofing closer to Spring Lake Heights? See Spring Lake Heights Roofing.
Trees Over Toms River Roofs
Toms River is overwhelmingly a township of detached houses. The Census Bureau counts 36,282 detached homes out of 46,504 housing units, which is 78.0 percent, and most of them stand on their own lots with their own trees. Many of those houses went up during the township’s growth in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was still Dover Township, and the trees planted then have had half a century to grow.
Limbs Over the Roofline
A branch that brushes the shingles in a breeze scrubs away granules and shortens the life of the roof long before any storm. A limb that hangs over the ridge is a bigger concern, because it is the piece most likely to come straight down. When we inspect a roof here, we note every limb that overhangs it and tell you which ones look like a real threat.
We are roofers, not arborists, so we do not cut or remove trees ourselves. What we can do is show you where overhanging wood has already marked the roof, where leaves and twigs are packing the gutters and valleys, and which section of the roof would take the hit if a particular limb failed. That gives you something concrete to bring to a tree service.
Tree Work and Township Rules
Removing a large tree on your lot may involve township rules, and the details are worth confirming directly with Toms River Township before the saw comes out. We have not verified the local thresholds, so we will not quote them to you. The safest order is to ask the township first, line up a qualified tree service, and then plan any roof work around that schedule.
When a tree removal and a roof replacement are both coming, doing the tree first usually saves money. Crews dropping limbs near a brand-new roof can scuff or crack fresh shingles, and a cleared roofline lets us see the full surface during the estimate. We are glad to coordinate timing so the two jobs do not overlap.
After a Wind Event: What to Check on the Roof
After a strong front passes through Toms River, a quick look from the ground can tell you a lot. You do not need a ladder, and after a storm you should not climb one. Start with what you can see from the yard and the street, then let a roofer handle anything that needs a closer look on the surface.
From the Yard
Look for missing shingles, creased tabs, a sagging section of roofline and gutters pulled away from the fascia. Check for branches resting on the roof, even small ones, because their weight and the wet leaves under them hold water against the shingles. Walk the perimeter and note any shingle pieces, granules or flashing scattered on the lawn or driveway.
Inside, look at ceilings on the top floor for fresh stains or bulges, and listen for dripping in the attic during the next rain. A tree strike that seems minor from outside can still crack decking or split a rafter. If anything looks off, call before the next storm turns a small opening into soaked insulation and drywall.
What We Look For Up Close
On the roof, we check where limbs have landed for punctures, broken shingles and cracked decking, and we look at flashing around chimneys, vents and walls where impact can twist the metal loose. In the attic, we trace any moisture or daylight back to its source and check the rafters under the strike point for splits or sag.
Every bit of damage we find is photographed and written up in plain language for your own insurance claim. If you ask, our crew will meet your adjuster at the house to walk the roof together. The claim itself stays between you and your insurer; our job is to give you an accurate record of what the roof looks like.
Repairing a Roof After a Tree Strike
A tree strike is not a shingle repair with extra steps. The weight of a falling trunk can drive through the roof covering, the decking and the framing underneath, so the repair has to work from the structure outward. We plan each one around what the impact actually broke, not around what the surface happens to show.
Drying In and Removing Debris
Once the tree itself has been removed by a tree service, our first step is to get the opening covered and the house protected from the next rain. That usually means a temporary dry-in over the damaged area while we measure for the permanent repair. Loose debris, broken shingles and shattered wood come off the roof and out of the gutters right away.
At the end of each work day, the yard, driveway and gutters are cleaned, and the ground is swept with a magnet for roofing nails. After a storm, your property often already has branches and broken glass scattered across it, and the last thing you need is a crew adding nails to the mess.
Decking, Framing and the New Surface
When the damaged shingles come off, we can finally see how far the impact reached. Any decking that is cracked, split or soft is photographed and shown to you before it is replaced, at the per-sheet price set in your contract. If a rafter is cracked, that framing repair happens before any new decking goes down.
The new surface goes on with underlayment, flashing and shingles matched as closely as possible to the rest of the roof. Shingle wind ratings are chosen for the design wind speed at your exact address rather than a general guess for the whole township, so the repaired section is built to the same standard we would use on a full replacement.
Repair, Replacement and Paperwork
If the tree damaged a small section of an otherwise healthy roof, a targeted repair is usually the right call, and we will say so. If the strike landed on a roof that was already near the end of its life, we will explain why a full replacement may be the better investment. Either way, the decision is yours once you have the facts in front of you.
In New Jersey, repairing or replacing the roof covering on a detached one- or two-family house counts as ordinary maintenance under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7, with no permit needed. Attached homes and multi-unit buildings fall outside that exemption, so we confirm which side of the line your house sits on before work begins. Every contract we write follows the state’s home improvement rules, including the three-day cancellation notice.
- 20+ Years in Roofing
- Attic and Roof Leak Checks
- Line-Item Written Scopes
