Dyker Heights is the rare Brooklyn neighborhood where most houses stand on their own lot. Detached and semi detached homes, driveways, garages, and hipped roofs with four planes instead of one flat deck. That changes the job completely. A row house roof is one rectangle. A Dyker Heights roof is four slopes, two or three valleys, a ridge, hips, and flashing at every place a dormer or chimney breaks the surface. Most of the leaks we get called for here start in a valley or at a hip, not in the field of the roof.
The building stock runs mostly 1920s through the 1950s, and a large share of it was worked on again in the 1980s and 1990s, when a lot of owners re clad brick facades in stucco and added the columns, arches and railings the neighborhood is known for. That second layer matters to us. When stucco went on over brick, the roof to wall flashing was often buried instead of rebuilt. Twenty five years later that is exactly where the water gets in, and you cannot see it from the ground.
We work the numbered streets from 65th to 86th and the avenues from 7th to 14th, including the display blocks around 11th, 12th and 13th Avenues. Being close to the Narrows also matters. Wind coming off the water hits the west facing slopes here harder than it hits the middle of Brooklyn, and we see lifted ridge caps and loose hip shingles on that side far more often than on the sheltered side of the same house.
What we actually see in 11228: Spanish and clay tile that has outlived its underlayment while the tile itself is still good, valley metal rusted through on 1950s hip roofs, flashing buried under 1990s stucco, ridge caps lifted by wind off the Narrows, and gutters undersized for a roof with four slopes feeding into them.
📞 Serving Dyker Heights and all surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods. Call (516) 713-9199 or (917) 570-7311 for a free estimate.
Q: Can you do the work around the Christmas display season?
A: Yes, and we plan for it. Nobody in Dyker Heights wants scaffolding up while the lights are going on, and the display crews start staging in early November. If your roof can wait, we book it for spring through October. If it cannot wait, we do the work in stages so the front elevation is clear before the lights go up.
Q: My roof has Spanish tile. Does the whole thing have to come off?
A: Usually not. On most Dyker Heights tile roofs the tile itself is still sound and the underlayment beneath it has failed. We lift the tile, stack it, replace the underlayment and flashing, and relay the original tile with new pieces only where something cracked. It costs less than a new tile roof and it keeps the look of the house.
Q: Why do detached houses cost more to roof than a row house?
A: Because you are paying for edges, not square footage. A hipped roof on a detached house has four slopes, hips, valleys, more perimeter, and more flashing than a flat Brooklyn roof of the same size. There is also access on all four sides to set up and protect. On a typical Dyker Heights single family we are usually looking at a range of about $14,000 to $30,000 for a full architectural shingle roof, and more for tile or slate.
Q: The wind keeps lifting shingles on one side of my roof. Why only that side?
A: You are probably on a west or southwest facing slope, and that is the side taking wind off the Narrows. Standard three tab shingles and under nailed ridge caps give up there first. The fix is a heavier architectural shingle, six nails instead of four on the exposed slopes, and a ridge cap rated for the wind speed rather than whatever came in the bundle.
Q: We stuccoed over the brick in the nineties. Should I be worried about the roof?
A: It is worth a look. A lot of that work buried the roof to wall flashing instead of rebuilding it, and buried flashing has no way to drain. If you get a stain on a top floor ceiling near an outside wall, that is usually the cause, not the roof surface. We open a small area, look at how the flashing terminates, and tell you what we find before anyone quotes a full job.
Q: Do you handle the roof anchors for the light display?
A: Yes. We set proper anchor points and run conduit so the display crew is not screwing into your shingles every December. Done once correctly it stops a decade of small holes in the same roof.
Unlike competitors who specialize in only one trade, MLM Construction Group handles roofing, stucco, EIFS, and gutters. One contractor for your entire exterior.
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