New roof in Manlius, NY: strip to the deck, and know which office issues the permit

Census estimates date the middle village house to 1968 and the middle town house to 1972. That is a guide to the housing, not a reading of your roof. Houses from those years commonly carry one covering or two by now.

The count of layers is the question you cannot answer from the yard. Ask your roofer to look at the edge of the roof, and ask whether the proposal assumes one layer or two. The price changes, and so does what the work is allowed to be.

Roofs on one Manlius street may have gone on in the same few years, so they may reach the same condition near each other. Seeing your neighbor's new roof is a reason to ask what yours is doing. It is not a reason to replace it.

The town's codes office works from Town Hall, whose Brooklea Drive address is in Fayetteville. The village keeps its own code enforcement office. The county has none.

So write village or town next to your address when you ask for a visit. When a roofer hands you an estimate, ask who pulls the permit and from which office. You want that name in writing, so a filing by the wrong office does not surprise you later.

We do not state a permit rule for either office here. Each one sets its own, so call the one for your address and ask whether a replacement needs a permit.

Ask for these lines on every estimate, so that two of them compare the same job. Does it remove the old roofing down to the deck? State code says a replacement shall, with narrow exceptions, and it bars a recover over two layers. What does it charge for each sheet of bad decking it replaces?

Does it put an ice barrier along the eave and a drip edge at the edge of the deck? Syracuse's weather station sees the temperature cross freezing on about 84 days each year, and the eave takes the worst of it. Those two items decide a lot about how the eave behaves.

Last, check what is public. New York does not license roofers, so use the Workers' Compensation Board's coverage search, ask for a written contract and look for the three-business-day notice that lets you cancel. You are the one who has to check these. We do not do the roofing or vouch for any firm.