How Much Does Wood Shake Roofing Cost in NJ?

Wood shake (cedar) roofing installs at roughly $10 to $20-plus per square foot in New Jersey, per NHI Contractors NJ pricing, while a repair averages about $750 with a range of $400 to $1,800, per Angi cost data.

Cedar repair cost splits by size: a small wood shake repair runs $100 to $400 and a large repair $1,000 or more, per HomeGuide cost data. Replacing shakes runs about $600 to $700 per 100-square-foot square, with labor accounting for roughly 60 to 70% of a cedar job, per Modernize cost data, so labor, not material alone, carries the larger share of an installed price.

Recurring maintenance is a cost line that asphalt and metal roofs do not carry: a fungicide or algaecide treatment runs $0.15 to $0.60 per square foot every few years, per HomeGuide cost data. That treatment slows the moisture-driven decay that ends a cedar roof early, and it carries a cedar shake toward the upper end of its 20-to-40-year range, per the Cedar Shake & Shingle Bureau.

Material grade, the ventilated assembly, fire-retardant treatment, tear-off, and recurring maintenance drive the price of a wood shake roof, layered on top of the $10-to-$20-plus-per-square-foot installed range, per NHI Contractors NJ pricing.

Material grade sets the first variable, because hand-split shakes cost more than a graded machine-sawn bundle, and the Cedar Shake & Shingle Bureau rates cedar shake at 20 to 40 years against cedar shingle at 30 to 50 years. The ventilated assembly adds labor: a cedar roof needs at least 1.5 inches of air space beneath the shakes, built from spaced skip sheathing or a breathable interlayment, because moisture, not insects, drives most premature cedar failure, per Cedar Shake & Shingle Bureau and NRCA guidance.

Fire-retardant treatment raises the price where ratings apply, since pressure-impregnated cedar reaches a Class B or Class C rating while untreated shakes are nonclassified under UL 790 and ASTM E108, per the Cedar Shake & Shingle Bureau Certi-Guard program. Tear-off is mandatory rather than optional on a permitted re-roof, because N.J.A.C. 5:23-6.4 bars a recover-over when the existing covering is wood shake, so the old cedar comes off to the deck before the new assembly goes down.

Wood shake roofing costs roughly 10 to 40% more in New Jersey than national figures, driven by higher regional labor and stricter NJ code, per NHI Contractors NJ pricing. A cedar install lands at $10 to $20-plus per square foot here.

New Jersey labor carries the larger share of that premium, because labor accounts for roughly 60 to 70% of a cedar job, per Modernize cost data, and the hand-selection, gapping for moisture expansion, and corrosion-resistant stainless-steel fastening that cedar demands are labor-intensive steps. NJ code adds the second factor: a permitted re-roof requires complete tear-off under N.J.A.C. 5:23-6.4, and Newark's January low near 25.5°F per NOAA 1991-2020 normals drives the freeze-thaw stress that the ventilated drying space exists to manage.

A detached one- and two-family cedar re-roof counts as ordinary maintenance under N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.7 and needs no construction permit, which keeps a residential job simpler than a commercial one, where repairing more than 25% of the roof area in 12 months triggers a permit. Newark Quality Roofing provides a free written estimate that documents the cedar condition and sets the scope, labor, and materials before any work begins.