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Otumia Internal Test Co
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Repair

Roof Repair

Where is it actually getting in?

Water shows up where gravity takes it, which is usually not where it entered. This page is what finding the difference involves.

Call (512) 555-0142or request an inspection

Not what you are looking at? Roof Replacement.

Illustration — not this company’s own work

Right now

What to do before anybody arrives.

Move what you can out from under the water and put something down to catch it. Do not go up on a wet or damaged roof to look — that is the part that injures people, and it can wait for somebody with the equipment.

What you are seeing

The things that usually bring somebody to this page.

None of these on its own tells you how serious it is. Together they tell an inspector where to start looking.

  • A stain on a ceiling or a wall, wet or long dried
  • Shingles lifted, cracked, curling or missing after wind
  • Granules collecting in the gutters or at the downspout
  • Daylight or damp visible in the roof space
  • Flashing lifting where the roof meets a wall, chimney or vent

How the cause is found

What happens on the roof, in order.

Water rarely enters where it appears. The point of the inspection is to find where it actually got in, which is often several feet uphill of the stain.

  1. 01The interior first — where the water shows, and what is above it
  2. 02The roof surface, section by section, including penetrations and valleys
  3. 03Flashing, seals and anywhere two planes meet
  4. 04The roof space where it can be reached, for the underside of the deck
  5. 05Photographs of each finding, so the report is evidence rather than opinion

The work itself

What Roof Repair involves.

Leaks, lifted or missing shingles, flashing and penetrations — traced to where the water actually enters, repaired, then checked.

Repair, or replace

When a repair is the right answer.

A sound roof with a local failure is repaired. That is most of them, and a company reaching for a replacement every time is not inspecting properly.

  • The damage is confined and the surrounding surface is sound
  • The deck underneath is dry and structurally intact
  • The roof has seasons left in it by condition, not only by age

When replacement becomes the honest answer.

There is a point where repairing costs more over two years than replacing once. An inspection should tell you which side of it you are on.

  • Failures in several separate areas rather than one
  • The deck is soft or has taken water over a long period
  • The covering has reached the end of its service life across the whole plane

What you are left with

Photographs, and a written scope.

Every finding is photographed before anything is touched and again once the work is done. You keep both, whatever you decide to do next.

Repair, or replace

Is a repair even the right job here?

Worth asking before anybody comes out. A company that never asks it is not inspecting properly.

RepairReplace

Almost every roof sits somewhere along here rather than at an end.

  1. 01Roughly how old is the covering?

    Age on its own condemns nothing — a well-ventilated roof can outlast its nominal life, and a badly detailed one can fail early. It matters because it changes what a given amount of damage means.

  2. 02Where is the problem showing?

    Usually the strongest single indicator. A sound roof with one failure is a repair; the same failure appearing in several unrelated places is the roof telling you it is finishing across the whole plane.

  3. 03Has this roof been repaired before?

    Repairs that hold are a good sign. Repairs that multiply in the same area are usually a symptom rather than a history — at some point the next one costs more over two years than replacing once.

  4. 04Any sign water has got past the covering?

    A stain on a ceiling, damp in the roof space or a soft patch underfoot means water has already reached the layers under the shingles. That is the line between a surface job and a structural one.

Nothing here decides it.

Answer what you can and the line will show which end of the conversation you are nearer. It is a way of understanding the question, not an answer to it.

This is not a diagnosis and it is not a quote. A roof is decided by somebody getting onto it and looking at the deck, the flashings and the valleys.

Have somebody look at it

Asked about this job

What people want to know first.

Before you call

How do you decide between repairing and replacing?

It comes down to how much of the roof is affected, the condition of the covering elsewhere, and whether the underlayment is still doing its job. We tell you which one we think it is and show you what we based that on.

The visit

What does a roof inspection actually cover?

The covering, the flashings, the valleys and the penetrations, plus the roof space where it can be reached safely. We photograph what we find as we go.

The next step

Start with a look at the roof.

None of this can be decided from a photo or a phone call. The inspection is what turns it into an answer, and you keep what it finds either way.

Request an inspection(512) 555-0142

Austin · Round Rock