What the seasons here put a Piscataway roof through
New Jersey hands a roof no gentle season. Summer here runs hot and sticky, and the heat that gathers in a poorly vented Piscataway attic cooks asphalt shingles from underneath while the sun beats on them from above. Then the storms arrive. The hard afternoon thunderstorms that roll across Middlesex County in July and August throw rain sideways into anything that is not flashed tight, and the coastal nor'easters that show up later in the year stack wind on top of hours of heavy rain. A roof that has been aging quietly through the summer is suddenly asked to shed a serious volume of water under real pressure, and that is the moment the weak spots open up.
Winter brings the slowest and most damaging force of the lot. When snow settles on a Piscataway roof and the attic below is warm, that snow melts, runs down to the cold overhang at the eave, and refreezes into an ice dam that backs water up beneath the shingles. The same freeze-and-thaw rhythm that builds those dams also works on every small crack and seam, prying each one open a little wider with each cold snap. The leak that finally shows itself in February was very often born from a brittle flashing detail the previous August. That is why we push so hard for an inspection before the cold sets in, while there is still time to seal the vulnerable spots before water and ice ever reach them.