A roofing contractor across the river from Albany

Rensselaer is a small city with a mix that leans older and denser than the suburbs around it.

There is a lot of multifamily housing, plenty of it with flat or low-slope roof sections, and older single-family homes with original chimneys and roofs that have been covered more than once. Along the riverfront there is newer development with entirely different roof types.

Most of what we do here involves either a membrane or a chimney, and frequently both on the same building.

What we do most in Rensselaer

• Flat and low-slope roof replacement with EPDM and membrane systems
• Multifamily and rental property work
• Chimney flashing on older masonry
• Replacements on older single-family homes
• Ice dam and eaves repairs
• Parapet and edge detail on attached buildings

Multifamily roofs and tenants

Working on an occupied multifamily building is as much a logistics job as a roofing one.

The building has to be watertight at the end of every day, not at the end of the week. Access for material and debris has to work without blocking residents in. And tenants need to know what is happening and when, because a roof crew overhead is disruptive whether or not anything goes wrong.

We plan that side of it with the owner or manager before starting, because the sequence matters more on an occupied building than the roofing method does.

Chimneys and older masonry

An older Rensselaer house usually has a masonry chimney, and after enough decades the mortar joints open up.

Proper chimney flashing means step flashing woven into the courses and counter-flashing let into the mortar above it. Where the masonry itself has deteriorated, the flashing has nothing sound to key into, and no amount of metalwork fixes a chimney that needs repointing first. We will tell you when that is the situation rather than sealing over it.

Knowing what is above the ceiling

On older multifamily buildings, what is actually on the roof is often not what anyone assumes. Sections get added, coverings get layered, and a building can end up with two or three different systems meeting at junctions nobody planned.

We would rather map that before quoting than discover it during a tear-off. Where there is roof access we look properly, and where there is not we say so. An estimate based on a guess about a roof nobody has been on is not worth much to either of us.

Ice dams turn up here as well, particularly on older houses where insulation has been added over the years without anyone checking the airflow at the eaves. The result is a warmer deck, meltwater running to a cold overhang, and a ridge of ice backing water up under the covering. We look at the attic as part of quoting a replacement rather than treating it as a separate problem.

Across the city

We cover the City of Rensselaer, Bath, the Fort Crailo area and the neighbourhoods around the train station.

Neighborhoods we cover

• City of Rensselaer
• Bath
• Fort Crailo area
• Rensselaer train station area