7 Signs Your Garfield, NJ Home Needs a New Roof.

September 29, 2026 · 5 min read · By Szwarc Construction

Your roof doesn't fail all at once. It sends warning signs first — usually months, sometimes years, before a leak actually shows up on your ceiling. The trouble is, most of those signs are easy to miss unless you know exactly where to look.

We've been doing roof inspections around Garfield and the rest of Bergen County for almost 20 years, and these are the seven things we check first. If two or more of these sound familiar, it's worth getting a professional opinion before winter weather or the next nor'easter turns a small problem into a big one.

1. Your Roof Is 20+ Years Old

Standard three-tab asphalt shingles typically last 20–25 years; architectural (dimensional) shingles can run closer to 25–30 years under good conditions. If you don't know your roof's age, check your home inspection report from when you bought the house, or ask your neighbors when the whole street got new roofs after a hailstorm — it happens more often than you'd think. Age alone isn't a guarantee of failure, but it does mean every other sign on this list deserves a closer look.

2. Shingles Are Curling or Buckling

Stand back from your house and look at the roofline. Shingle edges that curl upward ("cupping") or ripple in the middle of the roof plane ("buckling") mean the shingles have lost their flexibility and are no longer sealing properly against wind-driven rain. This is one of the clearest visual signs that a roof is nearing the end of its life, especially if it's happening across large sections rather than just one spot.

3. Granules Are Collecting In Your Gutters

Those sandy, gritty granules on the shingle surface protect the underlying asphalt from UV damage. It's normal to lose some in the first year or two as a new roof settles. It's not normal to find handfuls of them in your gutters or downspout splash blocks on an older roof — that's a sign the shingles are breaking down and losing their protective layer.

4. You Can See Daylight In The Attic

Head into your attic on a sunny day and turn off the light. Any pinpricks of daylight coming through the roof deck mean water can get in too — even if you haven't noticed a leak yet. While you're up there, feel for soft or spongy spots in the decking and check for dark staining or mold on the rafters, which usually shows up long before a ceiling stain does.

5. The Roofline Is Sagging

A roofline should be straight and even from ridge to eave. Any dip, sag, or wave — especially near valleys or the center of the roof — can mean the decking underneath has been absorbing moisture and weakening over time. This one isn't cosmetic. A sagging deck is a structural concern and typically means a full replacement is closer than a repair.

6. You've Had More Than One Leak This Year

A single leak around a chimney flashing or a pipe boot is often a straightforward, inexpensive repair. Multiple leaks in different spots, or the same leak coming back after being patched, usually means the roofing material itself has worn out everywhere — not just at the spot where water happens to be finding its way in first.

7. Moss, Algae, Or Dark Streaks Are Spreading

Dark streaks are usually algae and mostly cosmetic on their own. Moss is a different story — it holds moisture directly against the shingle surface, which accelerates granule loss and can lift shingles at the edges. If moss is spreading across shaded sections of an older roof, it's often a sign the shingles underneath have already started to deteriorate.

Repair Or Replace? How To Tell The Difference

As a rule of thumb: if the damage is isolated to one area, the roof is under 15 years old, and the decking underneath is still solid, a repair usually makes sense. If you're seeing two or more of the signs above spread across the whole roof, or the roof is past the 20-year mark, a full replacement is typically the more cost-effective choice — patching an old roof repeatedly tends to cost more over a few years than one properly done replacement, without actually solving the underlying problem.

The only way to know for sure is a hands-on inspection. We check the shingles, flashing, decking, and attic ventilation before we ever recommend replace over repair — not the other way around.

Why Local Experience Matters

New Jersey roofs deal with a specific mix of stressors: humid summers, freeze-thaw cycles all winter, and the occasional nor'easter or hurricane remnant that dumps hours of wind-driven rain. A roofing system built for Arizona heat or Florida hurricanes isn't necessarily built for what a Bergen County winter does to shingles and flashing over 20 years. Working the same streets for almost two decades means we've seen exactly how local homes age — and what actually holds up.

"You're never just another project number." That's been true since two brothers founded this company almost 20 years ago, and it's still how every inspection gets done today.