Roofing contractors across the New York metro area are reporting unprecedented demand following two major winter storms that buried the region under up to two feet of snow in a matter of weeks, straining crews and creating a backlog of service calls tied to ice damming, leaks, and structural concerns.
According to Gothamist, which first reported the demand surge, Amanda Veinott, owner of Maven Roofing & Exterior in Morris County, N.J., said her company fielded roughly 300 snow removal calls and completed 120 jobs over a three-week stretch — compared to approximately one snow removal job in a typical winter. In Brooklyn, Eden Sultan, senior project manager at Royal Renovators, said crews were receiving up to 30 calls per hour at peak, with requests spanning single-family homes, brownstones, and multifamily buildings.
Ice damming emerged as the dominant issue driving calls. The region’s freeze-thaw cycle allowed meltwater to refreeze at gutters and drainage points, forcing water to back up and infiltrate attics and wall cavities. Left unaddressed, the damage can escalate quickly — making early intervention both a safety issue and a significant upsell opportunity for contractors already on-site.
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The New York City Department of Buildings said most roofs in the city are engineered to meet code-required snow loads, but officials emphasized that structural capacity can deteriorate without regular maintenance. The agency reported no roof collapses tied to the recent storms — though the volume of service calls suggests widespread performance issues short of collapse.
For contractors in cold-weather markets, the back-to-back storms underscore a familiar but often underutilized business reality: extreme weather events compress months of potential maintenance conversations into a single phone call. Customers who never thought twice about roof upkeep are suddenly asking the right questions — and looking for someone they trust to answer them.