- Tear-off on a Toms River roof revealed sheet after sheet of rotted plywood, all replaced with new decking before anything went back on.
- The full GAF system followed: synthetic underlayment, ice and water shield, and Timberline HDZ shingles in Charcoal.
- A flat section was rebuilt with GAF Liberty base and cap sheets, and the garage got the same rot repair and new shingles. No more leaks.
The Job
This Toms River home sits under heavy tree cover, and the roof had been quietly paying for it. From the ground it looked like an aging shingle roof. Once the tear-off started, the plywood told the real story: sheet after sheet of rotted decking that had been soaking up slow leaks for years. You cannot shingle over that, so we did not. All the damaged wood came out and new plywood went in before anything else happened.
From there the roof got the full system: synthetic underlayment across the field, ice and water shield in the vulnerable areas where Jersey winters push meltwater back under the shingles, and GAF Timberline HDZ architectural shingles in Charcoal over the top. The clips below show it coming together, bundles staged up the ladder and the Charcoal going down course by course over the fresh deck.
The Flat Section: GAF Liberty
Not every roof plane on this house could take shingles. One section is flat, and flat roofs fail fast when someone forces shingles onto a pitch they were never made for. The right answer is a membrane system, so we rebuilt that section with GAF Liberty base and cap sheets, a layered modified-bitumen system made for low-slope roofs that seals down tight and sheds water without relying on gravity the way shingles do.
Shingles where the pitch supports them, membrane where it does not, and one manufacturer's system across the whole roof. That is how you keep a mixed-pitch house watertight instead of chasing leaks at the transitions.
The Garage Got the Same Treatment
The garage was its own project in miniature. Tear-off revealed multiple sheets of rotted plywood there too, so it got the same honest fix: damaged wood out, new decking in, then new shingles to match the main house. You can see the finished garage field in the photos, reading as one clean Charcoal surface with the house behind it.
No more leaks for this homeowner. We have been running this same playbook on roofs all season, from a Millstone replacement that started as a gutter cleaning to a three-structure job in Bradley Beach, and the rule never changes: fix the wood first, then build the system on top of it.
Project Gallery
Watch the Install
About Roofing in Toms River
Toms River is the biggest township in Ocean County and one of the busiest corners of our service area, block after block of capes, ranches, and two-stories that went up decades ago and are now hitting roof-replacement age all at once. A lot of these neighborhoods sit under serious tree cover too, which keeps the shingles damp, feeds the moss, and hides the slow leaks that rot decking from the top down.
That is why we treat every tear-off here as an inspection first and a roof second: the shingles tell you some of the story, but the plywood underneath tells you the rest. If you are in Toms River or anywhere in Ocean County and your roof is due, from a full replacement to keeping the gutters clear under all those trees, give us a call or text and we will give you a straight answer.