Midwood has more pitched roofs than people expect from Brooklyn. South of Avenue J and toward Kings Highway there are blocks of 1920s and 1930s brick Tudors and Mediterranean style houses with clay tile roofs. Between the Brighton line and Ocean Avenue, from Avenue H up to Foster Avenue, are Fiske Terrace and Midwood Park, about 250 freestanding houses finished mostly by 1914. Along Ocean Avenue, Coney Island Avenue and the Avenue J and Avenue M shopping strips it turns flat: prewar apartment buildings and stores with apartments upstairs.
The clay tile roofs are the ones owners here worry about, usually for the wrong reason. A good clay tile can last a century. The felt and the flashing under it do not. After thirty or forty years the underlayment dries out and cracks, and water that slips past the tile in a driving rain gets through to the deck. You get a stain on the top floor ceiling and not one broken tile on the roof. Replacing the whole roof for that is the expensive answer. The right one is to lift the tile in the leaking section, stack it, put down new underlayment and flashing, and lay the same tile back. Matching an old tile profile can take weeks, so we handle every piece like it cannot be replaced, because some of them cannot.
Fiske Terrace and Midwood Park have been a landmarked historic district since 2008, and here the roof is part of what the district protects. These are Arts and Crafts, Colonial Revival and Dutch Colonial houses, so there are gambrel roofs, dormers and porch roofs, all of it visible from the street. On a gambrel the leak is often right at the break, where the steep lower slope meets the shallow upper one. Roof work on a house inside the district generally needs a Landmarks Preservation Commission permit before it starts, even where the roof cannot be seen from the street, and visible work gets the closest review. We check the address against the district map before we give you a number.
The last pattern is the deck upstairs. A lot of Midwood houses have been expanded to the back of the lot and up, and many have a deck or a porch roof built so a sukkah can go up on it. That deck sits over a bedroom or a kitchen. It gets a crowd one week in the fall and the rest of the year it sits under furniture, planters and snow. When the membrane under it fails, and it usually fails at the door threshold, you find out from the ceiling below. We build these so the waterproofing can be checked without tearing the deck apart. We work Avenue H, Avenue J, Avenue M, Kings Highway, Glenwood Road, Foster Avenue, Ocean Avenue, Coney Island Avenue and East 15th through East 29th Streets.
What we actually see in 11230 and 11210: underlayment failing under clay tile that is still sound, tiles cracked by people walking on the roof to hang lights or move a dish, leaks at the break of a gambrel roof, deck membranes failing at the door threshold, and flat roofs on Avenue J and Avenue M buildings with drains that were never big enough.
📞 Serving Midwood and all surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods. Call (516) 713-9199 or (917) 570-7311 for a free estimate.
A homeowner in Midwood had been living with a leak in her living room for a long time. The water was coming in from the balcony. With a big storm forecast for the next day, she was worried and called us. We came out before the storm and sealed the joint between the balcony door frame and the wall, and that stopped the leak.
The lesson: a leak that has been there for months is often one small joint, and a fast visit can be all it takes. We call back within 45 minutes, and active leaks get a response 24/7.
📞 Leak that will not go away? Call (516) 713-9199 for a free inspection.
Q: Water is coming in but none of my clay tiles are broken. How?
A: Because the tile is not the waterproofing, the layer under it is. Tile sheds most of the water, and the felt or membrane underneath handles what gets past it in wind driven rain. After thirty or forty years that layer cracks, and the leak shows up with every tile still in place. We confirm it from the attic and from the roof, then lift the tile in that section, replace the underlayment and flashing, and relay the same tile.
Q: Do I need Landmarks approval to redo my roof in Fiske Terrace or Midwood Park?
A: If the house is inside the district, yes. Roof replacement there generally needs a permit from the Landmarks Preservation Commission before it starts, and work that can be seen from the street gets the closest review. A repair in matching material is usually simpler to get approved than a change, for example going from slate or wood shingle to asphalt. We check your address against the district map and tell you what the Commission is likely to ask for before we price the job.
Q: Can you waterproof the deck we use for the sukkah?
A: Yes. Most of these leak at the door threshold or where the deck meets the house wall, not out in the middle. We take the membrane up the wall and under the threshold, slope it to a drain or a scupper, and set the deck on sections that can be lifted so the membrane can be checked later. If the deck is already built, we tell you whether it can be repaired from the edges or has to come up.
Q: What does a clay tile repair cost in Midwood?
A: Resetting or replacing a few broken tiles usually runs from a few hundred dollars up to about $1,500, depending on whether matching tile is available. Lifting a full section to replace the underlayment is priced by the square foot after we have seen it, because the pitch, the tile weight and the access change the number a lot. We will not quote a tile roof over the phone.
Q: Do you work around Shabbat and the holidays?
A: Yes. We schedule Midwood jobs Sunday through Friday, finish early on Friday, and do not work on Jewish holidays. If a roof is open when the weather turns, it gets fully covered before we leave. For an active leak outside those days, call and we will talk through getting it contained.
Q: Which ZIP codes do you cover in Midwood?
A: Midwood is mostly 11230, with the blocks east of Ocean Avenue near Brooklyn College in 11210. We cover both, plus Flatbush, Kensington, Marine Park and Sheepshead Bay next door. Call (516) 713-9199 for a free estimate.
MLM Construction Group works out of 1717 Avenue P in Brooklyn, NY 11229. Midwood is inside our regular service area, so estimates and emergency calls there are handled by the same crew, not subcontracted out.
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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